Ashoka The Great

¤ Ashoka The Great

Ashoka Piyadassi Maurya (269-232BC) was perhaps Buddhism's most famous convert. He has caught the imagination of many as the cruel king who suddenly, after one battle, saw the light and became an avowed non-violent. The truth was a little more complicated than that.

Ashoka's conversion had been building for sometime before the famous battle of Kalinga (present Orissa) which is supposed to have knocked the wastefulness of war into him – ever since his younger brother Tissa converted to Buddhism. and he wasn't really a cruel king, even though he did put all his brothers to death to come to the throne – but then that was no different from what any other aspiring king would have done, and no doubt any of his brothers in similar circumstances would have done the same.
Most of what we know about him comes from Buddhist traditions, which would naturally try to portray him as this really ruthless animal who turned into a radically decent person as soon as he converted to Buddhism.

Nevertheless, Ashoka's reign has remained unique all through our Indian history. Under him, for the first time, almost the entire regions of present-day India were united under one central authority. Ashoka made Buddhism the state religion for having found peace in it. He wanted others to find it as well, although no conversions were forced upon the people.
This last was a clever political move as well for nothing unites a nation like the bonds of a common religion, as recommended by the crafty Chanakya in his masterpiece Arthasastra, a political and economic critique.

Next, Ashoka propounded his celebrated philosophy of Dhamma, which was a something like a correct moral code of conduct meets metaphysics. It has been suggested that Ashoka abandoned all violence so thoroughly that he even disbanded the army. This, however, was not true; for certainly the tone of some of the edicts that he has left strewn all over India, in which he warns troublemakers in the northwest border regions, is very much that of a king in control and ready to back up word with force. Ashoka also sent Buddhist missionaries abroad to spread the light; the most famous of these was sent to then Ceylon (Sri lanka), under his own son Mahindra and daughter Sanghamitra.

After Ashoka the Mauryan dynasty fizzled out surprisingly quickly. of Ashoka's sons, one Tivara died in his lifetime, another Kunala established an independent kingdom in the Kashmir region. Mahindra was, of course, appointed to carry out the more esoteric side of his father's concerns. The successor then was Jaloka, who succeeded when Ashoka died in 232Bc. He was physically very weak and died after just eight years. Confusion reigned for some years after his death, which was ended by Pushyamitta Sunga (184-149BC) taking over.