schools started making their way via the Silk Route into Central Asia and
eventually to China. Not least important, Emperor As ́oka is said to have sent
his own relative as an emissary to the court in Sri Lanka. Emperor Tissa is
said to have been converted and Sri Lanka ever since remained a center of
Therava ̄da Buddhist culture, literature, and thought. Indeed, it was from Sri
Lanka that Therava ̄da Buddhism flowed into Southeast Asia – to Myanmar,
Thailand, Cambodia, and Indonesia.
By the fifth century CE, many of the Buddhist texts were systematized.
Some portions of the earliest, Vinayapit.aka(discourses or literally “baskets”
on the monastic discipline) and Suttapit.aka(dialogues to elucidate points
ofdhamma), may even have been pre-Mauryan. During the fourth to third
centuriesBCE, such texts as the Dı ̄gha,Majjhima,Sam.yukta, and An.guttara
Nika ̄ya(“collections” of discourses) were being recorded. The Pa ̄li su ̄ ttas
followed around the second to first centuries BCE. The Abhidammapit.aka
(literally, “basket of scholasticism”) is to be dated about the first century
BCEto the first century CE, and the Dı ̄pavam.sa(fourth to fifth centuries CE)
and the Maha ̄vam.sa(both historical chronicles in Pa ̄li, fifth to sixth centuries
CE) followed.^56
Without doubt, the religious developments that occurred in this urban
period, from the Mauryas to the Guptas, permanently changed the religious
landscape of the subcontinent and had an impact, especially through
Buddhism, in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and the Middle East. What eventually
becomes known as “Hinduism” with its theism and devotional complexity is
scarcely intelligible without seeing its roots in this period. The ways in which
the Sanskritizing process works throughout the rest of Indian history is aptly
illustrated in these Gangetic urban complexes. The dialectic between the
“new” and the legitimating “old” is evident here as is the central metaphor
of ritual. Enactment of “sacrifice,” of “doing the truth,” became a funda-
mental way of affirming lineage and identity and of passing along a perceived
heritage to later generations. The profound changes taking place in urban
India, from the fourth century BCEto the fifth century CE, were integrated
and assimilated so smoothly by the brahmanic synthesizers, one scarcely
notices that there has been change at all. That has been something of the
genius of this religious stream – accommodating tributaries into it and
spawning additional rivulets out. Of course, the religious practice of the
cities was innovative and different, but they were still vaidikaor non-vaidika
insofar as there was a normative community who could make “connections”
and link each community’s perceptions to an authenticating past. It is a
process that continues to this day.
The Urban Period 83