not theism.  Asoka burns with zeal to propagate this Dhamma and his language recalls[586] the utterances of the Dhammapada.  He formulates the law under four heads[587]:  “Parents must be obeyed:  respect for living creatures must be enforced:  truth must be spoken ... the teacher must be reverenced by the pupil and proper courtesy must be shown to relations.”  In many ways the Sacred Edict of the Chinese Emperor K’ang Hsi resembles these proclamations for it consists of imperial maxims on public morality addressed by a Confucian Emperor to a population partly Buddhist and Taoist, just as Asoka addressed Brahmans, Jains and other sects as well as Buddhists.  But when we find in the thirteenth Rock Edict the incidental statement that the King thinks nothing of much importance except what concerns the next world, we feel the great difference between Indian and Chinese ideas whether ancient or modern.

The Rock Edicts also deal with the sanctity of animal life.  Asoka’s strong dislike of killing or hurting animals cannot be ascribed to policy, for it must have brought him into collision with the Brahmans who offered animals in sacrifice, but was the offspring of a naturally gentle and civilized mind.  We may conjecture that the humanity of Buddhism was a feature which attracted him to it.  In Rock Edict I. he forbids animal sacrifices and informs us that whereas formerly many thousand animals were killed daily for the royal kitchens now only three are killed, namely two peacocks and a deer, and the deer not always.  But in future even these three creatures will not be slaughtered.  In Rock Edict II. he describes how he has cared for the comfort of man and beast.  Wells have been dug; trees, roots and healing herbs have been planted and remedies—­possibly hospitals—­have been provided, all for animals as well as for men, and this not only in his own dominions but in neighbouring realms.  In the fourteenth year of his reign he appointed officers called Dhamma-mahamata, Ministers or Censors of the Dhamma.  Their duty was to promote the observance of the Dhamma and they also acted as Charity Commissioners and superintendents of the households of the King’s relatives.  We hear that “they attend to charitable institutions, ascetics, householders and all the sects:  I have also arranged that they shall attend to the affairs of the Buddhist clergy, as well as the Brahmans, the Jains, the Ajivikas and in fact all the various sects.”  Further he tells us that the local authorities[588] are to hold quinquennial assemblies at which the Dhamma is to be proclaimed and that religious processions with elephants, cars, and illuminations have been arranged to please and instruct the people.  Similar processions can still be seen at the Perahera festival in Kandy.