Udaya Amaradasa said...
Enjoyed reading your article.
It is noteworthy to mention here that around the time of Ashoka, Lanka was ruled by king Devanampiya Tissa (306 BC - 266 BC). If I'm not mistaken, Devanampiya is a title meaning 'liked by the gods'.
According to Mahavamsa, and other ancient texts of Lanka, Ashoka and Devanampiya Tissa were friends who exchanged knowledge, men, and material. The biggest gift of Ashoka to Tissa is the sending of Ashoka's son Mahindra, a buddhist sage to Lanka who introduced Buddhism to king Devanampiya Tissa who in turn spread it in Lanka.
January 01, 2007 8:24 PM
Siddhartha Shome said...
Udaya, thank you for your comment. Interestingly King Devanampiya Tissa of Lanka, whom you mention, was known to Turnour and Princep before they knew that Devanampiya Piyadasi of the inscriptions was Ashoka. For a while, Prinsep thought that the Devanampiya Piyadasi of the inscriptions was actually Devanampiya Tissa of Lanka - but he gave soon up the idea because there was no evidence of King Devanampiya Tissa having ruled those areas where the inscriptions were found. Of course soon after that, Prinsep and Turnour hit upon the correct identity of King Devanampiya Piyadasi in the inscriptions - Ashoka.
It is extremely fortunate that ancient texts of Lanka have preserved such an important part of India's heritage. After important centers of Buddhist learning like Sarnath, Nalanda, etc., were destroyed by various invaders, India herself lost the knowledge of much of her ancient past - it is said that when Bakhtiar Khilji sacked Nalanda in around 1200AD, the library was so huge that it burned for months . Interestingly, some of the ancient texts that were destoyed in Nalanda, were (and still are) preserved in their Tibetan translations in Tibetan Monasteries.
January 02, 2007 9:58 AM
For full article read
http://sidshome1.blogsp0t.com/2006/09/king-devanampiya-piyadasi-and.html
Edited By - Pawan98 - 9 Oct 2008 21:41:39 GMT |