Ashoka the Great

“ One of the latter is to be found on a pillar originally set up and inscribed by Asoka, now in the fort at Allahabad. It shows him a mighty conqueror, reigning over all Hindustan; victorious in the Deccan; and, by influence and alliances, dominant from Ceylon to the Oxus. His coins picture him playing on the lyre; the inscriptions speak of him as a poet and musician; in his reign began a great renaissance in art, architecture, literature, and perhaps especially in music,—a renaissance which reached its culmination in the reign of his successor. ”

“ About seven years after the death of Seleukos, Asoka-vardhana, commonly called Asoka, a son of Bindusâra, and the third sovereign of the Maurya dynasty, ascended the throne of Pâtaliputra (B. C. 273) , and undertook the government of the Indian empire, which he held for about forty years. According to the silly fictions which disfigure the Ceylonese chronicles and disguise their solid merits, Asoka waded to the throne through a sea of blood, securing his position by the massacre of ninety-nine brothers, one brother only, the youngest, being saved alive. ”

“ Was it Jainism (amongst the tenets of which this takes first place) which influenced Asôka most, or was it Buddhism? Doctors differ; only this we know, that it was through Asôka's exertions that the latter became the creed of one-third of the human race. For the energy of the man was incomparable. His missionaries were everywhere. "Let small and great exert themselves," is the cry still carven upon stone. "The teaching of religion is the most meritorious of acts.... There is no gift comparable to the gift of religion ... it is in the conquests of religion that the gods takes pleasure." ”

“ Asoka was the grandson of Chandragupta, the founder of the Maurya (Peacock) dynasty, who had wrested the Indian provinces of Alexander the Great from the hands of Seleucus, and he was the son of Bindusāra, who succeeded his father Chandragupta, by a lady from Champā. ”

“ Gautama Buddha lived, moved, and died within a small territory in and near Magadha, and there is no indication that during the interval of three centuries which elapsed between his death and the dispatch of missions by Asoka the Buddhist teaching had made any great noise in the world or was known beyond very narrow limits, nor is there any reason to believe that Asoka was constrained by political reasons to make a virtue of necessity and yield to the demands of an imperious priesthood. ”

“ Asoka owed as much to the political unity of India as to the wondrous vision which he had received from Buddha of all that it means to be a man, a human being, high born or low born, Aryan or non-Aryan.
But the question, Of what spiritual confraternity did Asoka hold himself a member?—becomes here of considerable importance. To belong to a new sect does not often have the effect of opening a man's heart to all about him in this fashion. Sects as a rule unite us to the few but separate us from the many. And here lies the meaning of the fact that Buddhism in India was no sect. ”

“ Not in matter, but in thought, not in possessions or even in attainments but in ideals, are to be found the seed of immortality. Not through material acquisition but in generous diffusion of ideas and ideals can the true empire of humanity be established. Thus to Asoka to whom belonged this vast empire, bounded by the inviolate seas, after he had tried to ransom the world by giving away to the utmost, there came a time when he had nothing more to give, except one half of an Amlaki fruit. ”

“ Brihaspati lays down the rule that ‘an acrimonious or malicious man, and one who causes dissension or does violent acts, or who is inimically disposed towards the guild (śrenî) , association (pûga) , or the king shall be instantly expelled from the town or the assembly of the corporation.'
Asoka takes upon himself as Head of the Church to eliminate schismatics and maintain ecclesiastical unity among both monks and nuns. No definite indication of the date of this edict can be discerned, but it is certainly la.ter than the Pillar Edicts, as is proved by the Kauśâmbi replica. ”

“ Asoka added a well beside each pillar, and further consulted the comfort of travellers by planting trees for shade and fruit, and by providing rest-houses and sheds supplied with drinking—water. The communications must have been good to make possible the control of the whole empire from a capital situated so far to the east as Pâataliputra [21] .
The imperial government was an absolute autocracy in which the king’s will was suprcme. From about b. c. 259 Asoka applied his autocratic power to the Buddhist Church, which he ruled as its Head. ”

“ Other instances of severity may be collected from Chânakya's treatise. In certain unspecified eases the eccentric penalty of shaving the offender's hair was inflicted. This punishment apparently was borrowed from Persia, and is one of several indications that the example of the court of the Great King influenced the customs of the Maurya sovereigns [34] . Asoka, as already observed, seems to have maintained the stern methods of his predecessors, the only mitigation for which he claims credit being the grant of three days' respite between a capital sentence and execution. ”

“ Part, which is inscribed all round the shaft, used to be erroneously described as a separate edict, No. VIII. The text, happily, is almost perfect, and the difficulties of interpretation are few. Many of the ideas and phrases, being repeated from the earlier inscriptions, have been sufficiently explained already. The subject is a comprehensive review of Asoka's religious efforts within his empire up to the twenty-eighth year of his reign. ”

“ Comment
This brief and nearly complete record on the Allahabad pillar follows the replica of the Sârnath edict. The script, as Bühler pointed out, exhibits sundry cursive and peculiar forms. I would date the inscription in the closing years of Asoka's reign. It seems to me to be the latest record extant. Its purpose is to secure to the Second Queen, mother of a prince named Tîvara (Tîvala) , the merit of any donations she might be pleased to make. The blank is filled up by Hultzsch with the words [he] vaṁ [vi] nati, translated as above (J. R. A. S., 1911, p. 1113) . ”

“ The conversion of the king, according to Hiuen Tsang, was due to the great saint Upagupta, whom he met after the destruction of the 'hell.' With the aid of Upagupta, King Asoka summoned the genii and commanded them to build stûpas throughout the land for the reception of the relics of Buddha's body, which had been taken out of the eight stûpas where they had originally been enshrined after the cremation of the Sâkya sage. At the moment of a solar eclipse the genii, in obedience to the commands of the king and the saint, simultaneously deposited the relics in all the stûpas. ”

“ Asoka erected about thirty or morc such monuments. When labour so great was required to move one a distance of a hundred and twenty miles we may imagine how much energy was expended in setting up thirty pillars, some of which were much heavier than that removed by Fîroz Shah, and were transported to distances still greater. ”

“ Asoka, on the contrary, in accordance with the practice of his Master, ignores, without denying, the existence of a Supreme Deity, and insists that man should by his own exertions free himself from vice, and by his own virtue win happiness here and hereafter. ”

“ Açoka, grandson of the great king Tshandragupta, was the first monarch who openly accepted the tenets and conscientiously practised the precepts of the profoundest religious teacher ever born of woman ”

“ Within a year of the conquest of the Kalinjas, for which he afterwards publicly recorded his remorse, Asoka became a lay disciple of the Buddhist law, and two and a half years later studied as a Buddhist monk. In 257 B.C., the thirteenth year of his reign, he began to preach his series of sermons in stone—sermons that were at the same time laws given to his Empire. His profession of faith was as lofty as it was simple:
The gods who were regarded as true all over India have been shown to be untrue. ”

“ During the reign of the 589 Indian king Asoka, who in the early part of his career was ferocious and irreligious, the public executioner enjoyed the singular privilege of being entitled to retain in his house every one, whatever his position or character, who might cross the threshold of his door. ”

“ There is no reason to believe that after the subjugation of the Kalingas Asoka ever again waged an aggressive war. His officers, the Wardens of the Marches mentioned in the edicts, may or may not have been compelled at times to defend portions of his extended frontiers against the incursions of enemies, but all that we know of his life indicates that once he had begun to devote himself to the love, protection, and teaching of the Law of Piety, or dharma, he never again allowed himself to be tempted by ambition into an unprovoked war. ”

“ One day, when five hundred of his ministers ventured to resist the royal will, Asoka, transported with rage, drew his sword, and with his own hand cut off the heads of all the offenders.
Another day, the Women of the palace, whom Asoka's rough features failed to please, mocked him by breaking off the leaves of an asoka tree in the garden. The king, when he heard of the incident, caused five hundred women to be burnt alive. ”

“ Such accessibility, although inconsistent with really eflicient government, is always highly popular in India, where the people never can be persuaded that a ruler may arrange his time more profitably than by exposing himself to incessant interruption. The European critic feels that if Asoka had worked less hard he would have done better work, but must admit that in spite of his defects of method he was wonderfully successful in holding together for forty years an empire rarely exceeded in magnitude. ”

“ He thus seemed to take after his grandfather, Chandra-gûpta, who, with all his many virtues, was unquestionably cruel and arrogant. But Asôka was not to follow in his ancestor's footsteps. Forty years afterward, when his long and peaceful reign, marred by but one war, had come to an end, he had earned for himself the well-deserved title of "The Loving-minded One, Beloved of the Gods." A great change in any man's life ”

“ Although Asoka probably had no clear faith in a living, personal God, his teaching certainly attained to a level of practical morality little inferior to that of the Church of England in many respects, and superior in one point, by the inclusion of animals within the circle of neighbours to whom duty is due. ”

“ The account given of his reign by Megasthenes makes him better known to us than any other Indian monarch down to the time of Akbar. In 297 B.C. he was succeeded by his son, Bindusara, who is supposed to have extended his dominions down to Madras. In 272 B.C. he in turn was succeeded by Asoka, the Buddhist emperor, the religious side of whose reign has already been described. Asoka’s empire included the greater part of Afghanistan, a large part of Baluchistan, Sind, Kashmir, Nepal, Bengal to the mouths of the Ganges, and peninsular India down to the Palar river. ”

“ They get the food and medicines which their cases require, and are made to feel at ease; and when they are better, they go away of themselves.
When king Asoka destroyed the seven topes, (intending) to make eighty-four thousand, (9) the first which he made was the great tope, more than three le to the south of this city. In front of this there is a footprint of Buddha, where a vihâra has been built. ”

“ But though Asoka greatly increased the number of master-builders in the imperial service by the employment of foreigners, even he could not command sufficient labour for his colossal building projects, [1] so that the stūpa-houses of the Sangha continued for the most part to be built of wood and thatch. But it was in his reign that the royal craftsmen of India began the great series of rock-cut stūpa-houses and monasteries for which Kārlē, Nāsik, Kenheri, Ajantā, Ellora, and other places are famous. ”

“ From the time of his consecration as emperor of India, two hundred and eighteen years after the death of the perfect Buddha, the miraculous faculties of royal majesty entered into King Asoka, and the glory which he obtained by his merit extended a league above and a league below the earth. ”

“ The most notable of her rulers in the olden time cherished the ambition of universal Indian dominion, and severally attained it in a greater or lesser degree; not one of them, however, attained it completely.” The point admits of great controversy and anything like a proper discussion would add to the bulk of this book so much as would be out of proportion to its bearing on the main subject. Mr. Vincent Smith admits that Asoka’s Empire included the whole of India proper except a tiny bit of the Southern peninsula lying between Nellore and Cape Comorin. ”

“ The tradition that Asoka, previous to his accession, served his apprenticeship to the art of government as Viceroy first of Taxila, and afterwards of Ujjain, may be accepted, for we know that both viceroyalties were held by princes of the royal family. ”

“ No attempt is made to idealize the objects depicted, although the artists have allowed their fancy considerable play in the representations of tritons and other fabulous creatures. The pictorial scenes, even without the help of perspective, tell their stories vividly, and many of the figures are drawn with much spirit. The purely decorative elements exhibit great variety of design, and some of the fruit and flower patterns are extremely elegant. Images of the Buddha were not known in the time of Asoka, and are consequently absent from his sculptures. ”