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Buddhism
Please see Ashoka (uation) for other uses of the
word Ashoka

Ashoka the Great (also Asoka,
अशोक Aśoka;
pronounced Ashok, even though there is an 'a' at
the end) was the ruler of the Mauryan empire from
273 BC to 232 BC. A convert to Buddhism, Ashoka
reigned over most of the Indian subcontinent, from
present day Afghanistan to Bengal and as far south
as Mysore.

The name "Ashoka" translates as 'without sorrow'
in Sanskrit. Asoka was the first ruler of ancient
Bharata (India), after the famed Mahabharata
rulers, to unify such a vast territory under his
empire, which in retrospect exceeds the boundaries
of the present-day Republic of India.

The United Kingdom|British author H. G. Wells
wrote of Ashoka: "In the history of the world
there have been thousands of kings and emperors
who called themselves 'Their Highnesses', 'Their
Majesties' and 'Their Exalted Majesties' and so
on. They shone for a brief moment, and as quickly
disappeared. But Ashoka shines and shines brightly
like a bright star, even unto this day."

==Early life==      
Ashoka was the son of the Maurya|Mauryan emperor
Bindusara by a relatively lower ranked Queen known
as Dharma. Ashoka had several elder siblings and
just one younger sibling, Vitthashoka. Because of
his exemplary intellect and warrior skills, he is
said to have been the favorite of his grandfather
Chandragupta Maurya. As the legend goes, when
Chandragupta Maurya left his empire for a Jain
living, he threw his sword away. Ashoka found the
sword and kept it.

==Rise to power==
Developing into an impeccable warrior general and
a shrewd statesman, Ashoka went on to command
several regiments of the Mauryan army. His growing
popularity across the empire made his elder
brothers wary of his chances of being favoured by
Bindusara to become the next emperor. The eldest
of them, Prince Susima, the traditional heir to
the throne, persuaded Bindusara to send Ashoka to
quell an uprising in the city of Taxila in the
north-west province of Sindh, of which Prince
Susima was the governor. Taxila was a highly
volatile place because of the war-like Indo-Greek
population and mismanagement by Susima himself.
This had led to the formation of different
militias causing unrest. Ashoka complied and left
for the troubled area. As news of Ashoka's visit
with his army trickled in, he was welcomed by the
revolting militias and the uprising ended without
a fight. (The province revolted once more during
the rule of Ashoka, but this time the uprising was
crushed with an iron fist). 

Ashoka's success made his step-brothers more wary
of his intentions of becoming the emperor, and
more incitements from Susima led Bindusara to send
Ashoka into exile. He went into Orissa|Kalinga and
stayed incognito there. There he met a fisherwoman
named Kaurwaki, with whom he fell in love;
recently found inscriptions indicate that she went
on to become his second or third queen.

Meanwhile, there was again a violent uprising in
Ujjain. Emperor Bindusara summoned Ashoka back
after an exile of two years. Ashoka went into
Ujjain and in the ensuing battle was injured, but
his generals quelled the uprising. Ashoka was
treated in hiding so that loyalists of the Susima
group could not harm him. He was treated by
Buddhist monks and nuns. This is where he first
learned the teachings of the Gautama
Buddha|Buddha, and it is also where he met Devi,
who was his personal nurse and the daughter of a
merchant from adjacent Vidisha. After recovering,
he married her. It was quite unacceptable to
Bindusara that one of his sons should marry a
Buddhist, so he did not allow Ashoka to stay in
Pataliputra, but instead sent him back to Ujjain
and made him the governor of Ujjain.

The following year passed quite peacefully for him
and Devi was about to deliver his first child. In
the meantime, Emperor Bindusara died. As the news
of the unborn heir to the throne spread, Prince
Susima planned the execution of the unborn child;
however, the assassin who came to kill Devi and
her child killed his mother instead. As the
folklore goes, in a fit of rage, Prince Ashoka
attacked Pataliputra (modern day Patna), and
beheaded all his brothers, including Susima, and
threw their bodies in a well in Pataliputra. At
that stage of his life, many called him Chanda
Ashoka meaning murderer and heartless Ashoka.

Ascending the throne, Ashoka expanded his empire
over the next eight years, expanding it from the
present-day boundaries of Bangladesh and the state
of Assam in India in the east to the territory of
present-day Iran and Afghanistan in the west; from
the Palmir Knots in the north to the almost
peninsular part of southern India.



==Conquest of Kalinga==
While the early part of Ashoka's reign was
apparently quite bloodthirsty, he became a
follower of the Buddha's teaching after his
conquest of Kalinga, on the east coast of India in
the present-day state of Orissa. Kalinga was a
state that prided itself on its sovereignty and
democracy; with its monarchical-cum-parliamentary
democracy, it was quite an exception in ancient
Bharata, as there existed the concept of
Rajdharma, meaning the duty of the rulers, which
was intrinsically entwined with the concept of
bravery and Kshatriya dharma.

The pretext for the start of the Kalinga War (265
BC or 263 BC) is uncertain. One of Susima's
brothers might have fled to Kalinga and found
official refuge there. This enraged Ashoka
immensely. He was advised by his ministers to
attack Kalinga for this act of treachery. Ashoka
then asked Kalinga's royalty to submit before his
supremacy. When they defied this diktat, Ashoka
sent one of his generals to Kalinga to make them
submit.

The general and his forces were, however,
completely routed through the skilled tactics of
Kalinga's commander-in-chief. Ashoka, baffled at
this defeat, attacked with the greatest invasion
ever recorded in Indian history until then.
Kalinga put up a stiff resistance, but they were
no match for Ashoka's brutal strength. The whole
of Kalinga was plundered and destroyed: Ashoka's
later edicts say that about 100,000 people were
killed on the Kalinga side and 10,000 from
Ashoka's army; thousands of men and women were
deported.

==Conversion to Buddhism==
As the legend goes, one day after the war was
over, Ashoka ventured out to roam the city and all
he could see were burnt houses and scattered
corpses. This sight made him sick and he cried the
famous quote, "What have I done?" The brutality of
the conquest led him to adopt Buddhism and he used
his position to propagate the relatively new
philosophy to new heights, as far as ancient Rome
and Egypt. From that point Ashoka, who had been
described as "the cruel Ashoka" (Chandashoka),
started to be described as "the pious Ashoka"
(Dharmashoka). He made Vibhajyavada Buddhism his
state religion around 260 BC. He propagated the
Vibhajyavada school of Buddhism and preached it
within his domain and worldwide from about 250 BC.
Emperor Ashoka undoubtedly has to be credited with
the first serious attempt to develop a Buddhist
polity. 



Prominent in this cause were his son Venerable
Mahindra and daughter Sanghamittra (whose name
means "friend of the Sangha"), who established
Buddhism in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He built
thousands of stupas and Viharas for Buddhist
followers. The Stupas of Sanchi are world famous
and the stupa named Sanchi Stupa 1 was built by
Emperor Ashoka. During the remaining portion of
Ashoka's reign, he pursued an official policy of
nonviolence or ahimsa. Even the unnecessary
slaughter or mutilation of animals was immediately
abolished. Wildlife became protected by the king's
law against sport hunting and branding. Limited
hunting was permitted for consumption reasons but
Ashoka also promoted the concept of vegetarianism.
Ashoka also showed mercy to those imprisoned,
allowing them leave for the outside a day of the
year. He attempted to raise the professional
ambition of the common man by building
universities for study and water transit and
irrigation systems for trade and agriculture. He
treated his subjects as equals regardless of their
religion, politics and caste. The kingdoms
surrounding his, so easily overthrown, were
instead made to be well-respected allies.

He is acclaimed for constructing hospitals for
animals and renovating major roads throughout
India. After this transformation of self, Ashoka
came to be known as Dhammashoka (Sanskrit),
meaning Ashoka, the follower of Dharma. Ashoka
defined the main principles of dharma (dhamma) as
nonviolence, tolerance of all sects and opinions,
obedience to parents, respect for the Brahmans and
other religious teachers and priests, liberality
towards friends, humane treatment of servants, and
generosity towards all. These principles suggest a
general ethic of behavior to which no religious or
social group could object.

Some critics say that Ashoka was afraid of more
wars, but among his neighbors, including the
Seleucid Empire and the Greco-Bactrian kingdom
established by Diodotus I, none could match his
strength. He was a contemporary of both Antiochus
I Soter and his successor Antiochus II Theos of
the Seleucid dynasty as well as Diodotus I and his
son Diodotus II of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom. If
his inscriptions and edicts are well studied, one
finds that he was familiar with the Hellenic world
but never in awe of it. His edicts, which talk of
friendly relations, give the names of both
Antiochus of the Seleucid empire and Ptolemy III
of Egypt. But the fame of the Mauryan empire was
widespread from the time that Ashoka's grandfather
Chandragupta Maurya defeated Seleucus I
Nicator|Seleucus Nicator, the founder of the
Seleucid Dynasty.

The source of much of our knowledge of Ashoka is
the many inscriptions he had carved on pillars and
rocks throughout the empire. Emperor Ashoka is
known as Piyadasi (in Pali) or Priyadarshi (in
Sanskrit) meaning "good looking" or "favoured by
the gods with good blessing". All his inscriptions
have the imperial touch and show compassionate
loving; he addressed his people as his "children".
These inscriptions promoted Buddhist morality and
encouraged nonviolence and adherence to dharma
(duty or proper behavior), and they talk of his
fame and conquered lands as well as the
neighbouring kingdoms holding up his might. One
also gets some primary information about the
Kalinga War and Ashoka's allies plus some useful
knowledge on the civil administration.

The Pillars of Ashoka|Ashoka Pillar at Sarnath is
the most popular of the relics left by Ashoka.
Made of sandstone, this pillar records the visit
of the emperor to Sarnath, in the 3rd century BC.
It has a Lion Capital of Asoka|four-lion capital
(four lions standing back to back) which was
adopted as the National emblem|emblem of the
modern Indian republic. The lion symbolises both
Ashoka's imperial rule and the kingship of the
Buddha. In translating these monuments, historians
learn the bulk of what is assumed to have been
true fact of the Mauryan Empire. It is difficult
to determine whether or not some actual events
ever happened, but the stone etchings clearly
depict how Ashoka wanted to be thought of and
remembered.



Ashoka's own words as known from his Edicts are:
"All men are my children. I am like a father to
them. As every father desires the good and the
happiness of his children, I wish that all men
should be happy always." Edward D'Cruz interprets
the Ashokan dharma as a "religion to be used as a
symbol of a new imperial unity and a cementing
force to weld the diverse and heterogeneous
elements of the empire".

See also: Edicts of Ashoka

==Death and legacy==
Emperor Ashoka ruled for an estimated forty years,
and after his death, the Maurya dynasty lasted
just fifty more years. Ashoka had many wives and
children, but their names are lost to time.
Mahinda and Sanghamitta were twins borne by his
first wife, Devi, in the city of Ujjain. He had
entrusted to them the job of making his state
religion, Buddhism, more popular across the known
and the unknown world. Mahinda and Sanghamitta
went into Sri Lanka and converted the King, the
Queen and their people to Buddhism and then
travelled to many countries, including Egypt and
the Hellenic world. So they were naturally not the
ones handling state affairs after him. Some rare
records speak of a successor of Ashoka named
Kunal, who was his son from his last wife. But his
rule did not last long after Ashoka's death.



The reign of Emperor Ashoka Maurya could easily
have disappeared into history as the ages passed
by, and would have, if he had not left behind a
record of his trials. The testimony of this wise
king was discovered in the form of magnificently
sculpted pillars and boulders with a variety of
actions and teachings he wished to be published
etched into the stone. What Ashoka left behind was
the first written language in India since the
ancient city of Harrapa. Rather than Sanskrit, the
language used for inscription was the current
spoken form called Prakrit.

In the year 185 BC, about fifty years after
Ashoka's death, the last Mauryan ruler, Brhadrata,
was brutally murdered by the then
commander-in-chief of the Mauryan armed forces,
Pusyamitra Sunga, while he was taking the Guard of
Honour of his forces. Pusyamitra Sunga founded the
Sunga dynasty (185 BC-78 BC) and ruled just a
fragmented part of the Mauryan Empire.

Not until some 2,000 years later under Akbar|Akbar
the Great and his great-grandson Aurangzeb would
as large a portion of the subcontinent as that
ruled by Ashoka again be united under a single
ruler. When India gained independence from the
British Empire it adopted Ashoka's emblem for its
own, placing the dharma wheel that crowned his
many columns on the Flag of India|flag of the
newly independent state.

==External links==
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/king_asoka.pdf
King Asoka and Buddhism. Historical and Literary
studies


{| border="1" align="center"
style="border-collapse:collapse"
| width="30%" align="center"| Preceded
by:
Bindusara 
| width="40%" bgcolor="#aaaaaa" align="center"|
Mauryan dynasty|Mauryan rulers
| width="30%" align="center"| Succeeded
by:
Dasaratha Maurya|Dasaratha
|}