k and the
untamed people of the borderlands. He bestows much thought on the
alleviation of human suffering, and his injunctions in restriction of
the slaughter and maiming of animals and the preservation of life are
minute and precise. It is in this connection that the influence of
Buddhism on Hinduism has been most permanent, for whilst the primitive
Aryan Hindus were beef-eaters, their descendants carried the vegetarian
doctrines of Buddhism to the extreme length of condemning cow-killing as
the most awful of crimes, next to the killing of a Brahman.

Determined to preserve the unity and discipline of his own church,
Asoka's large tolerance sees some good in all creeds. He wishes every
man to have the reading of his own scriptures, and whilst reserving his
most lavish gifts for Buddhist shrines and monasteries, he does not deny
his benefactions to Brahmans and ascetics of other sects. Nor is he
content merely to preach and issue orders. His monastic vows, though
they lead him to forswear the amusements and even the field sports which
had been his youthful pastimes, do not involve the severance of all
worldly ties. He is the indefatigable and supreme head of the Church; he
visits in solemn pilgrimage all the holy places hallowed by the memory
of Buddha, and endows shrines and monasteries and convents with princely
munificence; he convenes at Pataliputra a great Buddhist council for
combating heresy. But he remains the indefatigable and supreme head of
the State. "I am never fully satisfied with my efforts and my despatch
of business. Work I must for the welfare of all, and the root of the
matter is in effort." He controls a highly trained bureaucracy not
unlike that of British India to-day, and his system of government is
wonderfully effective so long as it is informed by his untiring energy
and singular loftiness of purpose.

With Asoka Buddhism attained to a supremacy in India which may well be
compared with that of Christianity in Europe under Constantine; and it
is only by measuring the height to which Buddhism had then risen that we
can realise the enduring power of Hinduism, as we see it through
successive centuries slowly but irresistibly recovering all the ground
it had lost until Buddhism at last disappears almost entirely off the
face of India, whereas it continued to spread, though often in very
debased forms, over the greater part of Eastern Asia, and still
maintains its hold there over more than a third o