this perfect sympathy of various faiths for one another, should know how to choose one among them for his own, and persist in it, till by its means he has reached the point where the formulae of sects are meaningless to him . . . . "A man has a right to hold his own belief, but never to force it upon another" is the dictum that has made of India a perfect university of religious culture, including every stage of thought and practice.'
A modern Hindu writer, following the same line of thought, lays down the rule:
'Let every man, so far as in him lieth, help the reading of the scriptures, whether those of his own Church or those of another[1].'
Asoka presumably did not believe in the Vedântist doctrine of Mâyâ, which forms a bond of union between so many Hindu sects, but, nevertheless, his theory of the relation which one sect or denomination should bear to another, as expressed in Rock Edict XII and Pillar Edict VI, agrees exactly with the principles formulated by Miss Noble and Pratâpa Siṁha[2].
Although Asoka unquestionably was familiar with a body of sacred Buddhist literature substantially identical with a large part of the Pâli canonical scriptures, the teaching of the edicts gives the impression of being different from that of most Buddhist works. We find no distinct reference to the doctrine of karma, or transmitted merit and demerit, nor is any allusion made to nirvâṇa, as the goal to be obtained
- ↑ Miss Noble, The Web of Indian Life, pp. 224, 281.
- ↑ Pratâpa Siṁha, Bhakta Kalpadruma (1866), transl. Grierson (J. R. A. S., 1908, p. 359).
