Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor
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22 Charles Wilkins, ‘An Inscription Copied by Mr Wilmot from a Stone at Bood-dha-Gaya’, AR, Vol. I, 1788.
23 Quoted without source in Theon Wilkinson, Two Monsoons, 1976.
24 Jonathan Duncan, ‘An Account of the Discovery of Two Urns in the Vicinity of Benares’, AR, Vol. IV, 1795.
25 This happy phrase comes from one of Jones’s successors, George Turnour, in the introduction to his An Epitome of the History of Ceylon, Compiled from Native Annals: and the First Twenty Chapters of the Mahawanso, 1836.
Chapter 4. Enter Alexander
1 In chronological order: several chapters in the Bibliotecha Historica of the Sicilian-Greek historian Diodoros Siculos, writing at the time of Julius Caesar; Historiae Alexandri Magni, written by the gladiator’s son Quintus Curtius Rufus (usually referred to as ‘Curtius’); Anabasis by Lucius Flavius Arrianus Xenophon (‘Arrian’); a chapter on Alexander in Bioi Paralleloi or ‘Parallel Lives’ by Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus (‘Plutarch’); and Historiarum Philippicarum by the fifth-century Roman historian Marcus Junianus Justinus (‘Justin’), drawing heavily on an earlier and now lost forty-four-volume work on Macedonian history written by his fellow Roman Trogus Pompeius.
2 Arrian, Anabasis. This translation from The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as described by Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Justin, trans. by J. W. McCrindle, 1893.
3 Ibid.
4 Quintus Curtius Rufus, Historiae Alexandri Magni. This translation from The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as described by Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Justin, trans. by J. W. McCrindle, 1893.
5 Plutarch, Parallel Lives. This translation from The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as described by Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Justin, trans. by J. W. McCrindle, 1893.
6 Arrian, Anabasis. This translation from The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as described by Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Justin, trans. by J. W. McCrindle, 1893.
7 Arrian, Anabasis. This translation from The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as described by Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Justin, trans. by J. W. McCrindle, 1893.
8 Junianus Justinus, Historiarum Philippicarum. This translation from Alexander the Great: Selections from Arrian, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius [Rufus], trans. by Pamela Mensch & James Romm, 2005.
9 It was Spitamenes who had delivered the rebel Bessos to Alexander, only to become a rebel in his turn. He had then been murdered by his wife, who had achieved some notoriety among the Macedonians by presenting herself at Alexander’s tent with her husband’s head.
10 Diodorus Siculos, Library of World History, Book XIX.
11 Appian, History of Rome, The Syrian Wars.
12 Junianus Justinus, Historiarum Philippicarum. This translation from The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as described by Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Justin, trans. by J. W. McCrindle, 1893.
13 Plutarch, Life of Alexander. This translation from The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as described by Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Justin, trans. by J. W. McCrindle, 1893.
14 Athenaios, Deipnosophists, quoted by J. W. McCrindle.
15 Junianus Justinus, Historiarum Philippicarum. This translation from The Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, as described by Arrian, Quintus Curtius, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Justin, trans. by J. W. McCrindle, 1893.
16 Pliny the Elder, Natural History, Book VI.
17 Arrian, Indica, from Anabasis of Alexander, together with the Indica, trans. E. J. Chambers, 1893.
18 Sir William Jones, ‘The Tenth Anniversary Discourse, delivered 28 February 1793, by the President, on Asiatick History, Civil and Natural’, AR, Vol. IV, 1795.
19 Patna is actually 240 miles downstream of Benares and 85 miles upstream of Monghyr, but that tallies almost exactly with Al-Biruni’s proportion of 11: 3. Jones was, of course, unaware that Al-Biruni had shown in his Al-Hind that Pataliputra was located on the Ganges some 220 miles downstream of Benares and 60 miles upstream of Monghyr – which placed it fair and square at the modern town of Patna.
20 James Rennell’s case was set out in the introduction to his Memoir and Map of Hindoostan, 1788.
21 Sir William Jones, ‘The Tenth Anniversary Discourse, delivered 28 February 1793, by the President, on Asiatick History, Civil and Natural’, AR, Vol. IV, 1795.
22 Sir William Jones, ‘The Tenth Anniversary Discourse, delivered 28 February 1793, by the President, on Asiatick History, Civil and Natural’, AR, Vol. IV, 1795.
23 Captain Wilford, ‘Of the Kings of Magad’ha; their Chronology’, AR, Vol. IX, 1809.
Chapter 5. Furious Orientalists
1 Sir William Jones to Lord Cornwallis, Lord Teignmouth, Memoir of the Life, Writings and Correspondence of Sir William Jones, Vol. II, 1804.
2 Henry Colebrooke in a letter to his father, Sir T. E. Cokebrooke, The Life of H. T. Colebrooke, 1873.
3 This information came from Lieutenant M. Kittoe, contained in a letter published in James Prinsep, ‘Further Particulars of the Sarun and Tirhut Laths, and Account of Two Bauddha Inscriptions Found, the One at Bakhra, in Tirhut, the Other at Sarnath, near Benares’, JASB, Vol. IV, 1835.
4 Henry Colebrooke, ‘Translation of One of the Inscriptions on the Pillar at Dehlee, Called the Lt of Feeroz Shah’, AR, Vol. VII, 1801.
5 Hugh Murray, ‘Conquest of Mysore’, Historical and Descriptive Account of British India, Vol. II, 1843.
6 Letter to a Mr Ballantyne dated Penag, 24 October 1805, quoted by Robert Chambers, Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen, 1856.
7 Sir John Malcolm in an obituary published in the Bombay Courier, quoted by Chambers.
8 H. H. Wilson, ‘An Essay in the Hindu History of Cashmir’, AR, Vol. XV, 1825.
9 Francis Buchanan, ‘On the Religion and Literature of the Burmas’, AR, Vol. VI, 1800.
10 Buchanan in later years took the name of ‘Hamilton’, which had the effect of dispersing his achievements under three names: Buchanan, Hamilton and Buchanan-Hamilton.
11 Sir Charles D’Oyly, Sketches of the NewRoad in a Journey from Calcutta to Gaya, 1830.
12 Francis Buchanan, ‘Description of the Ruins of Buddha Gaya, by Dr Francis Buchanan Hamilton, Extracted from his Report of the Survey of South Bihar’, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol II, 1830, and Journal of Francis Buchanan (afterwards Hamilton) kept during the Survey of the Districts of Patna and Gaya in 1811–12, Ed. H. V. Jackson, 1925.
13 Montgomery Martin, The History, Antiquities, Topography and Statistics of Eastern India, Vol. I, 1838 (compiled from the papers of Francis Buchanan).
14 Colin Mackenzie in a letter to Sir Alexander Johnston in 1817, quoted by H. H. Wilson in his introduction to A Descriptive Catalogue of the Oriental Manuscripts and other Articles Illustrative of the Literature, History, Statistics, and Antiquities of the South of India; Collected by the Late Lieut.-Col. Colin Mackenzie, Surveyor General of India, 1828.
15 See Richard Fynes, trans., The Lives of the Jain Elders, 1998.
16 The story of Chandragupta’s last years as a Jain monk at Sravana Belgola in Mysore was summed up by a later Orientalist, Bernard Lewis Rice, when he came to write the Gazetteer of the princely state of Mysore in the 1890s: ‘Chandra Gupta continued to minister to the wants of this his guru to the last, and was the only witness of his death. According to tradition, Chandra Gupta survived for twelve years, which he spent in ascetic rites at the same place and died there … Not only is Bhadrabahu’s cave, in which he expired, pointed out on the hill at Sravana Belgola, but the hill itself is called Chandra-giri after Chandra Gupta; while on its summit, surrounded with temples, is the Chandra Gupta basti [temple], the oldest there, having its façade minutely sculptured with ninety scenes from the lives of Bhadabahu and Chandra Gupta. Additional evidence is contained in the ancient rock inscriptions on the hill.’ B. Lewis Rice, Mysor
e: a Gazetteer Compiled for Government, Vol. I, 1897.
17 Colin Mackenzie, ‘Extracts from a Journal, dated Feb. 24 1797’, AR, Vol. IX, 1809.
18 Colin Mackenzie, ‘The Ruins of Amravutty, Depauldina, and Durnacotta’, Asiatic Journal, May 1823.
19 Mackenzie Album (WD1061), India Office Library Prints and Drawings, British Library. See also Robert Knox, Amaravati Sculptures at the British Museum, 1994.
20 James Burgess, in a brief additional note at the back of Notes on the Amaravati Stupa, 1882.
21 The Chakravartin is defined in the Mandhata-avadana and Sudasasana sutra. See also I. Armelin, Le Roi Détenteur de le Roue Solaire en Révolution (Carkravartin) selon le Brahmanisme et selon le Bouddhisme, 1975. The Chakravartin king had about him seven treasures: the chakra wheel as the symbol of the Dharma, his queen, his wise councillor, his treasurer, his jewels, his horse and chariot and his elephant.
Chapter 6. The Long Shadow of Horace Hayman Wilson
1 Quoted in R. F. Young and G. P. V. Somaratna, Vain Debates: the Buddhist-Christian Controversies of Nineteenth-Century Ceylon, 1996.
2 Sir Alexander Johnston in a letter to the chairman of the Court of Directors of the EICo, dated 13 November 1826, reproduced in Edward Upham, The Mahavansi, the Raja-Ratnacari and the Raja-vali, forming the Sacred and Historical Books of Ceylon, 1833.
3 ‘Remarks furnished by Captain J. J. Chapman of the R.E. upon the Ancient City of Anarajapura or Anaradhepura, and the Hill Temple of Mehentale, in Ceylon’, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. III, 1834.
4 James Emerson Tennent, Ceylon: an Account of the Island, 1859. Tennent was Turnour’s Resident in Ceylon and, by his account, one of the few members of the Ceylon Civil Service who appreciated the nature and immensity of the task he had undertaken.
5 Drawings of Sanchi by John Henry Bagnold, accession nos. 07.001–022, Royal Asiatic Society.
6 Andrew Stirling, An Account, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of Orissa Proper, or Cuttack, 1822. This was afterwards reprinted under the same title in AR, Vol. XV, 1825.
7 A. K. Mitra, ‘A Bell-Capital from Bhuvanesvara’, Indian Historical Quarterly, 5, 1929; and Nirmalkar Basu, ‘Some Ancient Remains from Bhubaneswar’, Journal of the Bihar and Orissa Research Society, 15, 1929.
8 Harry Falk, ‘Rajula-Mandagiri’, Aokan Sites and Artefacts, 2006.
9 James Tod, ‘Major Tod’s Account of Greek, Parthian, and Hindu Medals, Found in India’, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. I, 1827.
10 James Tod, Travels in Western India, Embracing a Visit to the Sacred Mounts of the Jains, and the Most Celebrated Shrines of Hindu Faith between Rajpootana and the Indus, 1839.
11 James Tod, ‘Major Tod’s Account of Greek, Parthian, and Hindu Medals, Found in India’, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. I, 1827.
12 William Wilberforce in the debate that preceded the passing of the India Act of 1813. The same individual is on record as declaring that he held the conversion of India to Christianity to be the ‘greatest of all causes, for I really place it before Abolition [of slavery]’.
13 Robert Montgomery Martin, The British Colonies: British Possessions in Asia, Vol. XI, 1854.
14 Despatch, 29 September 1830.
15 James Alexander, ‘Notice of a Visit to the Cavern Temples of Adjunta in the East-Indies’, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. II, 1830.
16 The full background is set out in J. Prinsep, ‘Facsimiles of Ancient Inscriptions, lithographed by Jas. Prinsep’, JASB, Vol.V, 1836. It includes Mr Ralph’s account of his first visit to Ajanta with Mr Gresley.
Chapter 7. Prinsep’s Ghat
1 A perverse name change since Job Charnock, the founder of modern Calcutta, took the name from the village of Kalighat, the site of a riverine port since the days of the Mauryas and named as such by the Chinese monk Xuanzang in the seventh century.
2 Obituary ‘The Late James Princep [sic]’, The Friend of India, 30 July 1840.
3 From a letter quoted by Om Prakash Kejariwal in his introduction to James Prinsep’s Benares Illustrated, reprinted 1996.
4 James Prinsep, ‘Note on the Occurrence of the Bauddha Formula’, JASB, Vol. IV, 1835.
5 B. H. Hogdson in a letter dated 11 August 1827 to Dr Nathaniel Wallich, quoted in Donald S. Lopez, Jr, ‘The Ambivalent Exegete’, essay in The Origins of Himalayan Studies: Brian Houghton Hodgson in Nepal and Darjeeling 1820–1858, ed. David Waterhouse, 2004.
6 B. H. Hodgson, ‘Sketch of Buddhism, derived from the Bauddha Scriptures of Nipal’, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. II, 1830.
7 B. H. Hodgson, ‘A Dispatch Respecting Caste by a Buddhist’, Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. III, 1929.
8 B. H. Hodgson, ‘Notices on the Languages, Literature, and Religion of the Bauddhas of Nepal and Bhot’, AR, Vol. XVI, 1828.
9 H. H. Wilson, ‘Description of Select Coins from Originals or Drawings in the Possession of the Asiatic Society’, AR, Vol. XVII, 1832.
10 James Prinsep, ‘Editor’s Preface’, JASB, Vol. I, 1832. See also Charles Allen, The Buddha and the Sahibs, 2002.
11 Dr H. Falconer, quoted in H. T. Prinsep, ‘Memoir of the Author’, Essays on Indian Antiquities by James Prinsep, 1858.
12 Dr J. G. Gerard, ‘Memoir on the Topes and Antiquities of Afghanistan’, JASB, Vol. III, 1834.
13 C. A. Court, ‘Extracts Translated from a Memoir on a Map of Peshawar and the Country Comprised Between the Indus and the Hydaspes’, JASB, Vol. V, 1836.
14 James Prinsep, ‘Additions to Bactrian Numismatics, and Discovery of the Bactrian Alphabet’, JASB, Vol. VII, 1838.
15 James Prinsep, ‘Note on Lieutenant Burnes’ Collection of Ancient Coins’, JASB, Vol. II, 1833. See also Harry Falk, ‘The Art of Writing at the Time of the Pillar Edicts of Asoka’, Berliner Indologische Studien, 7, 1993; Richard Salomon, ‘On the Origin of the Early Indian Scripts’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 115, 1995; Richard N. Frye, ‘The Aramaic Alphabet in the East’, Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology, 2006.
16 James Prinsep, ‘Note on the Coins, found by Captain Cautley, at Behat, near Saharanpur’, JASB, Vol. III, 1834.
17 James Prinsep, ‘On the connection of various ancient Hindu coins with the Grecian or Indo-Scythic series’, JASB, Vol. IV, 1835.
18 Alexander Cunningham, ‘Four Reports made during the years 1862–63–64–65’, ASI Report, Vol. I, 1871.
19 Ibid.
20 James Prinsep, ‘Note on Inscription No. 1 on the Allahabad Column’, JASB, Vol. III, 1834.
21 Lieutenant T. S. Burt, ‘A Description with Drawings of the Ancient Stone Pillar at Allahabad, Called Bhim Sen Gada or Club, with Accompanying Copies of Four Inscriptions Engraven Upon its Surface’, JASB, Vol. III, 1834.
22 B .H. Hodgson, ‘Notice of Some Ancient Inscriptions in the Characters of the Allahabad Column’, JASB, Vol. III, 1834.
23 James Prinsep, ‘Note on the Mathiah Lath Inscription’, JASB, Vol. III, 1834.
24 B. H. Hodgson, ‘Account of a Visit to the Ruins of Simroun, Once the Capital of the Mithila Province’, JASB, Vol. III, 1834.
25 James Prinsep, ‘Further Particulars of the Sarun and Tirhut Laths, and Accounts of Two Bauddha Inscriptions Found’, JASB, Vol. III, 1834.
26 James Prinsep, ‘Second Note on the Bhilsa Inscription’, JASB, Vol. III, 1834. This incorporated Captain E. Fell’s ‘Description of an Ancient and Remarkable Monument, near Bhilsa’, originally published in the Calcutta Journal, 11 July 1819.
27 George Turnour, ‘Examination of Some Points of Buddhist Chronology’, JASB, Vol. V 1836.
28 ‘Minutes of the Committee of Pares on Mr Turnour’s Proposed Publication of the Mahavansi [sic]’, JASB, Vol. V 1836.
29 George Turnour, An Epitome of the History of Ceylon, Compiled from Native Annals: and the First Twenty Chapters of the Mahawanso, translated by the Hon. George Turnour, Esq., Ceylon, Civil Service, 1836.
&
nbsp; 30 For reasons of greater accuracy this excerpt is not from Turnour’s translation but from a later and more accurate version by Wilhelm Geiger, The Mahavamsa: the Great Chronicle of Lanka, translated into German and English and published in 1912. Elsewhere Turnour’s original translation is given, unless otherwise stated.
31 George Turnour, An Epitome of the History of Ceylon, Compiled from Native Annals: and the First Twenty Chapters of the Mahawanso, 1836. This section is missing from the MSS translated by Geiger, which paraphrases this section as follows: ‘When Bindusara had fallen sick Asoka left the government of Ujjeni conferred on him by his father, and came to Pupphapura [Pataliputra], and when he had made himself master of the city, after his father’s death, he caused his eldest brother to be put to death and took on himself the sovereignty in the splendid city.’
32 Wilhelm Geiger, The Mahavamsa: the Great Chronicle of Lanka, 1912.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid.
35 George Turnour, An Epitome of the History of Ceylon, Compiled from Native Annals: and the First Twenty Chapters of the Mahawanso, translated by the Hon. George Turnour, Esq., Ceylon, Civil Service, 1836.
36 Wilhelm Geiger. The excerpt is from Ch. XXII. Turnour’s translation ended at Ch. XX.
Chapter 8. Thus Spake King Piyadasi
1 That same year saw the publication in France of Foé Koué Ki, subtitled Relations des Royaumes Bouddhiques: voyage dans la Tarsarie, dans l’Afghanistan et dans l’Inde, exécuté, à la fin du IVe siècle, par Chy Fa Hian. This was a posthumous work by the French sinologist, Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, completed by his colleagues Jules von Klaproth and Jean-Pierre Landresse. It was the first translation outside China of an account by a Chinese Buddhist monk named Faxian of his pilgrimage across India at the start of the fifth century CE.
2 According to the Society’s records, Stuart had in 1813 donated ‘two slabs with inscriptions from Bhubaneshwar in Orissa’.
3 The remaining statues purloined by Stuart were auctioned by Christie’s and are now in the British Museum.
4 Markham Kittoe’s report is contained in James Prinsep, ‘Examination of the Separate Edicts of the Aswastama Inscription at Dhauli in Cuttack’, JASB, Vol. VII, 1838.