Introduction
Sanghamitra, also known as Sanghamitta, was a daughter of Ashoka who, according to Sri Lankan chronicle tradition, followed her brother Mahendra's mission by bringing a sapling of the original Bodhi tree to Sri Lanka and establishing the order of Buddhist nuns there.
Family
- Father: Ashoka
- Mother: Devi (queen)
- Siblings: Dasharatha Maurya, Kunala, Mahendra, Tivara
Bringing the Bodhi Tree
The sapling Sanghamitra is said to have brought, planted at Anuradhapura, is venerated in Sri Lankan Buddhist tradition as a direct living link to the tree under which the Buddha himself attained enlightenment, and the tree said to descend from it remains an important pilgrimage site to this day. Her establishment of the bhikkhuni order in Sri Lanka parallels Mahapajapati Gotami's earlier founding of the nuns' order in India, extending that institution into a new region.
This article records the Maurya Empire (c. 4th-2nd century BCE) as historical genealogy reconstructed from Ashoka's own rock and pillar edicts, Greek and Latin accounts of contact with the Mauryas, and later Buddhist, Jain and Puranic traditions composed well after the events they describe; where these traditions genuinely disagree, that disagreement is noted rather than resolved into invented certainty.