140 ASOKA MAURYA at a date subsequent to their publication, and after the emperor had assumed the monastic robe. The one document in the whole series of the Asoka inscriptions which is avowedly Buddhist in explicit terms the Bhabra Edict evidently belongs to the same period as the council, and is to be interpreted as the address of the emperor-monk to his brethren of the order. The extent of the enormous empire governed by Asoka can be ascertained with approximate accuracy. On the northwest, it extended to the Hindu Kush moun- tains, and included most of the territory now under the rule of the Ameer of Afghanistan, as well as the whole, or a large part, of Baluchistan, and all of Sind. The secluded valleys of Suwat and Bajaur were probably more or less thoroughly controlled by the imperial offi- cers, and the valleys of Kashmir and Nepal were cer- tainly integral parts of the empire. Asoka built a new capital in the vale of Kashmir, named Srinagar, at a short distance from the city which now bears that name. In the Nepal valley, he replaced the older capital, Manju Patan, by a city named Patan, Lalita Patan, or Lalitpur, which still exists, two and a half miles to the southeast of Kathmandu, the modern capital. Lalita Patan subsequently became the seat of a separate prin- cipality, and it retains the special Buddhist stamp im- pressed upon it by Asoka. His foundation of this city was undertaken as a memorial of the visit which he paid to Nepal in 250 or 249 B. c., when he undertook the
