54 siglinde dietz
was a friend of Bimbisra, the king of Magadha during the Buddha’s
lifetime. In return for a gift of precious garments, Bimbisra sent to
Pukkusti a golden plaque on which he had inscribed the Buddhist
teachings. Pukkusti subsequently became a monk and went to rvast
to meet the Buddha, who taught him the Discourse on the Analysis of
the Elements (Dhtuvibhagasutta).^31 Another tradition has it that either a
pupil of nanda brought the teachings of the Buddha to Gandhra
only fty years after kyamuni’s death or that the Buddha himself
brought Buddhism to Uttarpatha. There is, however, no evidence at
all available attesting the presence of Buddhism in Gandhra at this
early date.
The rst Buddhist missions to Central Asia must have started from
the northwest of the Indian subcontinent. As the Sinhalese chronicles
The Chronicle of the Island (Dpavasa VIII.1–4) and The Great Chronicle
(Mahvasa XII.1–28) report, the thera Moggaliputta sent missionaries
to adjacent countries, to propagate there the Buddhist doctrine after
the third council that had taken place under Aoka.^32 Majjhantika (Skt.
Madhyntika) was sent to Kashmir and Gandhra and converted there
not only the nga king^33 Arav
a but also expounded the doctrine to
eighty thousand persons in the discourse svispam^34 (The Simile of
the Serpent). Even though the major part of this story might be legend-
ary, the presence of Buddhism in Gandhra at this time is con rmed
by Aoka’s Kharo h inscriptions at Shhbzga h and Mnsehr and
those written in Greek and Aramaic at Kandahar (Kandahr).^35
We do not have any evidence, however, that the northwest region
was converted to Buddhism before the Maurya dynasty (ca. 300–185
BC), because archaeological remains from the time before 300 would
have to belong to the pre-script and pre-picture period of archaeol-
ogy. Buddhist archaeological remains of the period after 300 are
found in the Buddhist “Middle country” (madhyapradea) at all places
where the Buddha lived and is said to have visited.^36 We do not have
(^31) MN III, pp. 237–247.
(^32) Cf. editors’ introduction.
(^33) The ngas, “serpent-(demons)” are either supposed to have a human face with
serpent-like lower extremities or are represented as ordinary men. The worship of
ngas is the most common popular belief which Buddhist missionaries had to struggle
with. Cf. Lamotte 1958, pp. 368f.
(^34) Cf. SN IV, pp. 172–175 or AN II, pp. 110–111.
(^35) Salomon 1998a, pp. 152f.
(^36) See Kieffer-Pülz 2000, p. 309.