ABSTRACT
Asoka prescribes respect to samana as to brahman, but the only attitude he takes toward the Sakya Sangha, beyond, once, a respectful greeting, is that of a fatherly adviser. His day was one of moral awakening, and he put himself at the head of it. He made Sakya great, not because it was not at the time growing in moral warding of life, but because it had become a great movement needing his patronage and leadership. There is a striking difference in his use of the term after he has, in later life, come to profess himself a zealous Sakyan. Much scholarly attention, again, has been expended on the edicts referring to his will for inclusive instruction in the advantages of "dhamma-walking" and "dhamma-luck" over his whole empire. Dhamma had for Sakya ceased to be the gentleman's external norm of behaviour.
