st of
the Kalingas; because, during the subjugation of a preciously
unconquered country slaughter, death, and taking away captives of
the people necessarily occur; whereat His Majesty feels profound
sorrow and regret..."

It would be in keeping with the Southern Buddhist tradition as to
the ungovernable violence of Asoka's youth, that he should have
introduced into war horrors quite contrary to Manu and Indian
custom; but here I must say that H. P. Blavatsky, though she
does not particularize, says that there were really two Asokas,
two 'Devanampiya Piadasis,' the first of whom was Chandragupta
himself, from whose life the tradition of the youthful violence
may have been drawn; and there remains the possibility that this
Kalinga War was waged by Chandragupta, not Asoka; and that it
was he who made this edict, felt the remorse, and became a
Buddhist. However, to continue (tentatively):--

"The loss of even the hundredth or the thousandth part of the
persons who were then slain, carried away captive, or done to
death in Kalinga would now be a matter of deep regret to His
Majesty. Although a man should do him any injury, Devanampiya
Piadasi holds that it must patiently be borne, so far as it
possibly can be borne... for His Majesty desires for all animate
beings security, control over the passions, peace of mind, and
joyousness. And this is the chief of conquests, in His Majesty's
opinion: the Conquest of Duty."

Some time later he took the vows of a Buddhist monk, 'entered the
Path'; and, as he says, 'exerted himself strenuously.'

He has been called the 'Constantine of Buddhism'; there is much
talk among the western learned, about his support of that
movement having contributed to its decay. They draw analogy from
Constantine; even hint that Asoka embraced Buddhism, as the
latter did Christianity, from political motives. But the analogy
is thoroughlv false. Constantine was a bad man, a very far-gone
case; and there was little in the faith he adopted, or favored,
as it had come to be at that time, to make him better;--even if
he had really believed in it. And it was a defined religio-
political body, highly antagonistic to the old state religion of
Rome, that he linked his fortunes with. But no sovereign so
mighty in compassion is recorded in history as having reigned, as
this Asoka. He was the most unsectarian of men. Buddhism as it
came to him, and as he left it, was not a sect, but a living
spiritual mov