The Mauryan Empire and Ashoka
The Mauryas unite most of the subcontinent, and the emperor Ashoka, sickened by war, preaches a moral law of non-violence and tolerance.
- Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 — Romila Thapar, Allen Lane / University of California Press (2002)
- Ashoka — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- India: A History — John Keay, HarperCollins (2000)
- Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo — Richard Gombrich, Routledge (1988)
Around 321 BCE Chandragupta Maurya seized the throne of Magadha in the Ganges plain, soon after Alexander the Great’s invasion of the north-west, and built an empire from his capital at Pataliputra (Patna). His grandson Ashoka, who reigned from about 268 to 232 BCE, ruled almost the entire subcontinent except the far south.
- Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 — Romila Thapar, Allen Lane / University of California Press (2002)
- Ashoka — Encyclopaedia Britannica
About eight years into his reign Ashoka conquered Kalinga, on the east coast. In his own words, carved in stone, 150,000 people were deported and 100,000 killed, and he felt deep remorse. He became a lay Buddhist and devoted himself to spreading dhamma, a moral code of non-violence, honesty, kindness to servants and animals, and respect for all religious sects, Brahmins and ascetics alike.
- Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 — Romila Thapar, Allen Lane / University of California Press (2002)
- Ashoka — Encyclopaedia Britannica
His edicts, inscribed on rocks and polished pillars from Afghanistan to Karnataka, are the oldest deciphered written texts from India. He sent missions abroad, including, by tradition, his son to Sri Lanka, and Buddhism spread widely. After his death the empire declined and ended around 185 BCE. Ashoka was largely forgotten in India until the British scholar James Prinsep deciphered his Brahmi script in 1837, and was then embraced by nationalists, above all Nehru, as a symbol of an ethical, tolerant Indian state.
- Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 — Romila Thapar, Allen Lane / University of California Press (2002)
- India: A History — John Keay, HarperCollins (2000)
In Buddhist memory Ashoka looms even larger. Theravada chronicles credit him with sponsoring a third council at Pataliputra and sending missions across Asia, including his son Mahinda to Sri Lanka, and his model of the righteous king who protects the Sangha shaped Buddhist kingship for two thousand years.
- Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo — Richard Gombrich, Routledge (1988)
- Ashoka — Encyclopaedia Britannica
Why it matters today
Ashoka is modern India's model of a just ruler. The lion capital from his pillar at Sarnath is the national emblem, his wheel is on the flag, and his edicts urging respect for all sects are cited as an ancient root of Indian secularism.
Ashoka is the model Buddhist king, remembered in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Thailand as the ruler who turned from conquest to dhamma and sent the teaching abroad. Buddhist monarchs and modern leaders alike have invoked him, and his pillars mark many of the pilgrimage sites Buddhists visit today.