527 and 529, he actually adopted the priestly garb[1].' Du Halde relates of this emperor that—
'He was not without eminent qualities, being active, laborious, and vigilant; he managed all his affairs himself, and dispatched them with wonderful readiness; he was skilled in almost all the sciences, particularly the military art, and was so severe upon himself, and so thrifty, as 'tis said, that the same cap served him three years; his fondness at last for the whimsical conccits of the bonzes carried him so far as to neglect intirely the concerns of the State, and to become in effect a bonze himself; he put out an edict forbidding to kill oxen or sheep even for the sacrifices, and appointed ground corn to be offered instead of beasts[2].'
A large part of Du Halde's description applies accurately to Asoka, but I see no reason to believe that the Indian monarch resembled his Chinese imitator in entirely neglecting affairs of State during his later years.
However exact or inexact the parallel may be in detail, it holds good for the main fact that both Asoka and Wu-ti succeeded somehow in combining the duties of monk and monarch.
A slightly less exact parallel to Asoka's action is offered by the case of the Jain Kumârapâla, King of Gujarât in the twelfth century, who assumed the title of 'Lord of the Order,' and at various periods of his reign took vows of continence, temperance, abstention from animal food, and refraining from confiscation of
