By the year 249 his mind was turning definitely towards the acceptance of the teachings of S'akyamuni in preference to those of any other of the religious teachers who laid claim to the allegiance of religious India. He went on a solemn pilgrimage to the sacred places of India with Upagupta, the patriarch of the Northern School, as his guide, and the sight of the Lumbini grove, where S'akyamuni was born, of Bodhigaya, where he attained to Enlightenment, of Benares, where the Wheel of the Law was set in motion, and of the Sacred Grove, in which he died, moved him apparently to a further step. In 240 he was ordained as a monk, and in the Bhabhra Edict, dated, soon after that, he proclaimed himself definitely as a Buddhist. Between As'oka's ordination and his death (which Vincent Smith assigns to B.C. 231) must be placed his Council, the data for which are so confusing that writers like Kern have come to the conclusion that it never took place at all, but was a mere figment of chronologists and history-writers of the Southern School. Northern Buddhism, it is true, knows nothing of As'oka's Council, but there is nothing in this fact to justify a denial of its having taken place. It is probable that the Council took place, and that it was an effort on As'oka's part to procure reforms of abuses which had crept in during the 230 years which had elapsed since the death of the Founder. It is also reasonable to suppose that he laboured at the Council for the promotion of those views which he had so persistently advocated in the long succession of rock edicts.

Footnotes