Note 27 — Chapter III

It is not easy to determine with precision in what year occurred the conversion of King Adzatathat to Buddhism. Though his father Pimpathara was a zealous Buddhist from the very beginning of the preaching of Gaudama, his son seems to have kept aloof from the religious movement that took place in the royal city of Radzagio, within the precincts of the royal palace, and continued to adhere to the tenets of the ancient creed. His faith, however, in the hitherto national religion, that is to say, Brahminism, does not appear to have been deeply seated in his soul. He was a shrewd, ambitious, and crafty politician; and from what we know of the beginning of his reign, his political principles were of the most elastic nature. Even after his conversion to Buddhism, he does not appear to have scrupled in the least to resort to the most questionable means for satisfying his ambition. The disputes between the upholders of the contending systems had, as is often the case, shaken his former convictions without imparting new ones. Perhaps he remained in that ambiguous position for a political object. He was glad to place himself at the head of the malcontents, who, on account of the king’s religious innovations, must have been numerous. Be that as it may, we see the Crown Prince of Radzagio receiving with open arms Dewadat, the enemy of Buddha, espousing his party, and looking upon him as his spiritual adviser. This occurred about ten or twelve years before Buddha’s death. With the advice of his new friend, he compassed and effected the destruction of his father three or four years afterwards, and became king in the seventh year before Phra’s Neibban. His conversion probably took place after the death of Dewadat, four or five years subsequent to that event; but it appears to have been sincere and earnest. His love for Buddha’s person was so intense that it atoned fully for the harm which, under his name and protection, Dewadat had endeavoured to inflict on his great relative.

Adzatathat reigned thirty-two years, that is to say, twenty-five years after Gaudama’s death. Under his reign, the first council was held with his consent, and a promise to make the decisions of the assembly be received with respect and strictly attended to. This is the first direct interference of the secular power in matters of a purely ecclesiastical nature. Adzatathat was, however, too prudent in his policy to persecute directly the holders of anti-Buddhistic opinions, who as yet formed the great mass of the people. He zealously supported the new creed he had adopted, but he left full liberty to the followers of the pounhas. By the advice of Kathaba, Adzatathat fixed the beginning of the religious era in the year of Buddha’s demise. It is the one which is followed by all the southern Buddhists. It was not the necessity of correcting certain errors in the calendar which induced the king to adopt that measure, since a correction had been made a hundred and forty-eight years ago by King Eetzana with the assistance of a celebrated hermit. A religious motive alone induced the king to obtemper the solicitations of Kathaba on this subject, and lay, as the point of departure for the reckoning of years, the great event of the death of the founder of religion.

The two names of Pimpathara and of his son Adzatathat are indissolubly connected with the origin of Buddhism and its spread through the Magatha country. To the first, Gaudama owed much for the extraordinary success that attended his preachings and the conversion of remarkable personages. In a country like India, the example of the king must have exerted an extraordinary influence over the courtiers and the wealthy and powerful persons. The second rendered no less important services to the cause of religion, by supporting openly the great Kathaba, the patriarch of Buddhism, and countenancing the decisions of the first council, which secured unity among the members of the assembly at the very time that evil-minded individuals endeavoured to sow the seeds of dissension among the religious, and upset the fabric which Buddha’s genius and zeal had just set up. Under the reign of those two sovereigns religion gained a firm footing in Magatha, and secured for itself an ascendancy which it retained with various successes for many centuries.