None of these works can indeed be looked upon as a truly historical source.  There are, even in those paragraphs which treat of the oldest history after Buddha’s death, proofs enough that they simply hand down a faulty historical tradition.  In spite of this, their statements on the Nirgrantha, cannot be denied a certain weight, because they are closely connected on the one side with the Buddhist canon, and on the other they agree with the indisputable sources of history, which relate to a slightly later period.

The first authentic information on Vardhamana’s sect is given by our oldest inscriptions, the religious edicts of the Maurya king A[’s]oka, who, according to tradition was anointed in the year 219 after Buddha’s death, and—­as the reference to his Grecian contemporaries, Antiochos, Magas, Alexander, Ptolemaeus and Antigonas confirms,—­ruled, during the second half of the third century B.C. over the whole of India with the exception of the Dekhan.  This prince interested himself not only in Buddhism, which he professed in his later years, but he took care, in a fatherly way, as he repeatedly relates, of all other religious sects in his vast kingdom.  In the fourteenth year of his reign, he appointed officials, called law-superintendents, whose duty it was to watch over the life of the different communities, to settle their quarrels, to control the distribution of their legacies and pious gifts.  He says of them in the second part of the seventh ‘pillar’ edict, which he issued in the twenty-ninth year of his reign, “My superintendents are occupied with various charitable matters, they are also engaged with all sects of ascetics and householders; I have so arranged that they will also be occupied with the affairs of the Sa[.m]gha; likewise I have arranged that they will be occupied with the Ajivika Brahma[n.]s; I have arranged it that they will also be occupied with the Niga[n.][t.]ha”. [Footnote:  See Senart, Inscriptions de Piyadasi, tom.  II, p. 82.  Ed. VIII, l. 4.  My translation differs from Senart’s in some points especially in relation to the construction.  Conf. Epigraphia Indiea, vol.  II, pp. 272f.] The word Sa[.m]gha serves here as usual for the Buddhist monks.  The Ajivikas, whose name completely disappears later, are often named in the sacred writings of the Buddhists and the Jainas as an influential sect.  They enjoyed the special favour of A[’s]oka, who, as other inscriptions testify, caused several caves at Barabar to be made into dwellings for their ascetics. [Footnote:  See Ind.  Antiquary, vol.  XX, pp. 361 ff.] As in the still older writings of the Buddhist canon, the name Niga[n.][t.]ha here can refer only to the followers of Vardhamana.  As they are here, along with the other two favourites, counted worthy of special mention, we may certainly conclude that they were of no small importance at the time.  Had they been without influence and of small numbers A[’s]oka would hardly have known of them, or at least would not have singled them out from the other numerous nameless sects of which he often speaks.  It may also be supposed that they were specially numerous in their old home, as A[’s]oka’s capital Pa[t.]aliputra lay in this land.  Whether they spread far over these boundaries, cannot be ascertained.