A. About six centuries.
287. Q. What help did Kings give?
A. Besides the lower classes, great Kings, Rājās and Mahārājās were converted and gave their influence to spread the religion.
288. Q. What about pilgrims?
A. Learned pilgrims came in different centuries to India and carried back with them books and teachings to their native lands. So, gradually, whole nations forsook their own faiths and became Buddhists.
289. Q. To whom, more than to any other person, is the world indebted for the permanent establishment of Buddha's religion?
A. To the Emperor Ashoka, surnamed the Great, sometimes Piyadāsi, sometimes Dharmāshoka. He was the son of Bindusāra, King of Magadha, arid grandson of Chandragupta, who drove the Greeks out of India.
290. Q. When did he reign?
A. In the third century B.C., about two centuries after the Buddha's time. Historians disagree as to his exact date, but not very greatly.
291. Q. What made him great?