Gap In History

Nor was Upali, who systematised Buddhist ideas on monastic rules and discipline, a Kalingan contemporary of Ashoka, as Kanekar makes him out to be. He was born three centuries earlier, one of the chief disciples of the Enlightened One. In other aspects, however, the story is reasonably close to historical fact and is an interesting mix of erudition and historical imagination, even if at times imagination does obstruct the flow of the narrative.