Ashoka

(r. 269–232 B.C.E.) The greatest ruler in
the Maurya dynasty, who reigned over a
kingdom stretching from Afghanistan to
southern India from his capital at
Pataliputra. Ashoka’s father, Bindusara,
and his grandfather, Chandragupta
Maurya, had created a centralized
empire. Aside from the far south, the
only area outside its influence was the
region known as Kalinga (modern state
of Orissa).
Early in his reign, Ashoka’s armies
conquered Kalinga in a bloody campaign, killing hundreds of thousands of
people; the carnage had a profound
effect on the young Ashoka. Several
years later Ashoka formally adopted
Buddhism and embraced the principle
of nonviolence (ahimsa). As a result he
formally renounced war as a means
of conquest.
Early historians believed that
Ashoka used his royal power to make
Buddhism the state religion, but this
position appears to misread the evidence. Ashoka did seem to be attracted
to Buddhism, but his public pronouncements on “Dhamma,” earlier
identified with Buddhist teaching, seem
to have been aimed at creating a climate of social responsibility, tolerance,
nonviolence, and harmony. These were
qualities that most reasonable people
would endorse, and some historians
have suggested that such vague guidelines indicate an attempt to unify a religiously diverse empire.
Ashoka is by far the best-known figure
of his era, largely because he set up public
inscriptions all over his kingdom. Rock
edicts tended to be carved on rock faces
close to the empire’s borders, while pillar
edicts were inscribed on pillars erected
on the main roads.
The writing used for these inscriptions varied in different regions of the
empire, although the language for all
was a Prakrit, one of the grammatically
simple vernacular languages that developed from Sanskrit. These inscriptions
are the earliest written Indian documents of any historical significance;
they reveal a great deal about Ashoka’s
public persona, his exhortations to his
subjects, and even something about the
man himself.
In modern India, Ashoka is the model
for the enlightened ruler, and the
Ashokan pillar capped with four lions has
been adopted as the emblem of the modern republic of India.