^24:1 Murakami, in his "Handbook of Buddhism," gives the 18 Hinayana sects immediately after the Second Council. A fuller list will be found in J.R.A.S for January, 1892, p. 5. It is impossible and un-advisable to burden the memory with what are after all mere names, though some of the sects, the Dharmaguptas, for instance, and the Sarvastivadins, appear frequently in Chinese Buddhism. The followers of the two Vehicles lived side by side for several centuries after Christ: sometimes we have cases of a teacher following the Mahayana in his theological speculations, and the Hinayana in his tenets on discipline.

^24:2 It would almost seem as though, in the interval between the Parinirvana of S'akyamuni and the accession of As'oka, Buddhism in India had lost a great deal of ground, and that it was the patronage of As'oka only that saved S'akyamuni from the oblivion which befel his predecessors in the Buddhaship. Megasthenes describes Brahmanic religious rites and life, but is practically silent about Buddhism.

^25:1 Megasthenes was the author of a book, still extant, which gives a very detailed account of the life at the court of Chandragupta.

^26:1 These embassies must have been sent in the early part of his reign, soon after his conversion to religion. One of the kings thus approached was Magas, King of Cyrene, who died in B.C. 258. One can see a possible reason for the alliances between As'oka and Antiochus Theos in the fact that the year B.C. 256, in which it was concluded, also saw the establishment of the Parthian kingdom of the Arsacides, and the revolt of Bactria under Diodotus. In such a crisis the friendship of As'oka, who was practically sole ruler of Hindustan (as may be gathered from the locations of the inscriptions), must have been of paramount importance to the Seleucid government.