son and successor of Aśoka[1] and by the disastrous effects of the royal bounty that thenceforth flowed into the community.
The legend of Samprati’s conversion is given as follows by the Svetāmbara. Suhastin was one of the leading members of the Jaina community under Mahāgiri, and he once met King Samprati in Ujjain (East Mālwā). Now in a previous birth Samprati had been a beggar and had seen Suhastin’s disciples carrying sweets. When he asked for some of this confectionery Suhastin said he could only give them on condition of Samprati’s becoming his disciple, so he received initiation, took the sweets, ate heartily of them and died. When, as King Samprati, he saw Suhastin again, his former birth came back to his memory, and he again became a convert to Jainism. Samprati tried to spread Jainism by every means in his power, working as hard for Jainism as Aśoka had for Buddhism: he even sent preachers as far as Afghanistan; but unfortunately he quite demoralized the monks with the rich food he showered upon them. Suhastin dared not refuse this food, for, as in his previous birth, the king laid great stress on diet and would have been irreconcilably offended if it and his superabundant alms had been refused. So the old leader of the community, Mahāgiri, saw all his hopes of winning the monks to lives of sterner asceticism overturned; and, finding that remonstrance with Suhastin was of no avail, he separated from him and withdrew to Daśārṇabhadra, where he committed suicide by voluntary starvation.
Suhastin.After Mahāgiri’s death Suhastin became de jure the leader that he had previously been de facto, and the Jaina account him one of their greatest spiritual heads. A strong man was needed, for the community had been much weakened by the three schisms and by the late quarrel between- ↑ Aśoka was Emperor of India 273–231 B.C. The Jaina say that he was a Jaina before he was converted to Buddhism.
