the change of disposition which he has been able to bring about; and that, above all, his own example will lead people to adopt his teachings.

Any one who knows Indian feeling will be amazed at the boldness of this program. That the king should appoint Lord High Almoners or Charity Commissioners to look after his own gifts would offend none. That these officials should be required to look into the manner in which the great people at the court disbursed their charities and report if they went wrong (wrong, that is, from the king's point of view), would be unpopular enough in any case, but doubly so when his point of view was what it was. That the king should settle disputes, when brought before him or his court, between members of the various Orders, was right enough. That he should arrogate to himself to look after their private concerns was quite another matter. That he should hold a certain set of opinions, and be bent on propagating them, was comfortable to those that held the same. That he should ignore every one else, even on his own side, and give out that he was the teacher, and that the Dhamma was his Dhamma, would be accepted, of course; but with a shrug, suggestive that much allowance must be made for the self-complacency of kings.

That he failed was no wonder. The set of opinions he favoured with his patronage was enfeebled and corrupted by his favour. With all his evident desire to do the very best possible things, and always to be open to the appeals of the subjects he looked upon as his children, he left his empire in such a

condition that it soon disintegrated and crumbled away. He made the boast (vain boast) that the brahmins, who claimed to be gods upon the earth, had, by his efforts, ceased to be so regarded, and he himself committed the irreparable blunder of imagining himself to be a deus ex machind, able and ready to put all things and all men straight.

Yet, in spite of all, he surely remains one of the most striking and interesting personalities in the history of the world. There is a personal touch in the Edicts which cannot be ignored. The language must be his own. No minister would have dared to put such confessions and such professions into the mouth of so masterful a master. The language is rugged, uncouth, involved, full of repetitions, reminding us often of the mannerisms of the speeches of Cromwell. And the preoccupation with himself, his opinions, his example, his good deeds, amounts almost to megalomania. But how sane the grasp of things most difficult to grasp! How simple, how true, how tolerant, his view of conduct and of life! How free from all the superstitions that dominated so many minds, then as now, in East and West alike! It was not his own view, it is true, quite as much as he makes out. But he had made it his own, and was keen to bring others to know it. To realise what this means, one may consider how many of the Greek princes in all the vast domains which had once formed the empire of Alexander were intellectually capable of rising to the same height. Unless it be maintained that the general average of intelligence in such things was higher then in India than

in Greece it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that Asoka must have been a man of quite exceptional natural ability. The style of his Edicts, on the other hand, is scarcely compatible with much intellectual culture or training. His early years were apparently otherwise occupied. But his long reign is a a sign of physical vigour; and of his strong will and moral earnestness, even to the point of self-control, there can be no question. Those who think Indian affairs should be looked at through the spectacles of mediæval brahmins can never forgive him for having made light of the priests, and the gods, and the superstitious ceremonies of the day. But the gospel he preached was as applicable to the India of that day as it would be to India now. That he was wanting in the most efficient sort of practical statesmanship seems to have been chiefly due to the glamour of his high position, of a majesty that was, indeed (and we should never forget this), so very splendid that it was great enough to blind the eyes of most. The culture of a Marcus Aurelius or an Akbar might have saved him from this. But even as it was, it is, among European rulers, with Marcus Aurelius for some things, with Cromwell for others, that he deserves to be compared. That is no slight praise, and had Asoka been greater than he was he would not have attempted the impossible. We should have had no Edicts. And we should probably know little of the personality of the most remarkable, the most imposing, figure among the native princes of India.

FRO

of the Guptas, the history of India is, at preseht, in a state of the utmost confusion and darkness. The Jain and Buddhist literature of this period is still, almost entirely, buried in manuscript. From time to time a ray of light, now in one part of what had been the great Magadha empire, now in another, illumines the darkness. The labours of numismatists and epigraphists have been directed to the reconstruction, from such isolated data as the the coins and inscriptions give us, of a continuous chronology and of a connected history. The progress of this work, especially in the past few years, has been great. But the field is so vast, the data are so sporadic, doubt as to the eras used is so persistent an obstacle, that the difficulty of this reconstruction is immense.

One or two of the ancient sites have been partially excavated; but archæological exploration has been almost confined, as yet, in India, to what can be found on the surface. There was a widely diffused

and continuous literary activity throughout the whole of this (now, to us) dark period; and much of it is still extant. But only one portion of it, that portion preserved in the brahmin schools of theosophy and the sacrifices, has been as yet, adequately explored. And this portion-partly be cause it has been mostly recast at a later date, partly because the priests, very naturally, tended to ignore the events of a period when they were not yet in the ascendant-has yielded but little result. No attempt has, therefore, been made to describe the social or economic condition of the people, or to trace the gradual change of opinion, according to the varying local influences, within this period. And even as regards the bare lists of kings and names of battles, the loss or gain of this or that town or province by this or that combatant, there is at present only little evidence, and a very imperfect consensus of opinion as to the meaning even of that little. It will be sufficient, under these circumstances, if we confine ourselves here to a rapid outline of the salient facts.

During the whole period there was no really paramount power in India. One or other of the many smaller kingdoms into which it was divided. attained, at one time or another, considerable extension of boundary, and held for a generation or two a position superior to the rest. But no one of them attained at any time to so much as a quarter of the size of the old empire of Magadha.

It is very suggestive that of Magadha itself we hear almost nothing for more than five centuries