ASHOKA, THE BELOVED OF THE GODS

At Sarnath, between two and three hundred years after Shakyamuni Buddha first turned the Wheel of Dharma the Emperor Ashoka erected a pillar. The four lions at its crown representing the "lion's roar of the dharma" (shakyasimha) in the cardinal directions, were adopted by modern India as the national coat of arms. At the lions' base is the Wheel of Dharma reproduced at the center of the Indian flag,

Ashoka’s reign of more than three decades is the first fairly well-documented period of Indian history. Ashoka left us a series of great inscriptions (major rock edicts, minor rock edicts, pillar edicts) which are among the most important records of India’s past. Ever since they were discovered and deciphered by the British scholar James Prinsep in the 1830s, several generations of Indologists and historians have studied these inscriptions with great care. The independent Republic of India selected Ashoka’s lion pillar as the emblem of the state.

According to Buddhist tradition Prince Ashoka started his political career when he was appointed governor of Taxila in the northwest where he successfully suppressed a revolt. He was then transferred to Ujjain, the famous capital of the earlier kingdom of Avanti in central India. The precise date and the circumstances of Ashoka’s accession to the throne are not yet known.

Buddhist texts mention that Ashoka had to fight against his brothers and that he was crowned only four years after his de facto accession. But the Dutch Indologist Egger-mont thinks that these are only legends which were invented later by the Buddhists, and he feels confident about dating Ashoka’s reign from 268 to 233 BC.

The first important event of Ashoka’s reign led to a crucial change in his life: in 261 BC he conquered Kalinga, a kingdom on the east coast which had resisted Maurya expansionism for a long time. In his inscriptions Ashoka told the cruel consequences of this war: ‘150,000 people were forcibly abducted from their homes, 100,000 were killed in battle and many more died later on’. Due to this experience Ashoka abjured further warfare and turned to Buddhism. In his famous thirteenth rock edict he stated: ‘Even a hundredth or a thousandth part only of the people who were slain, killed or abducted in Kalinga is now considered as a grievous loss by Devanampiya [Beloved of the Gods, i.e. Ashoka]’, and he also stated that he now only strove for conquest in spiritual terms by spreading the doctrine of right conduct (dhamma).

He became a Buddhist lay member (upasaka) and two years after the Kalinga war he even went on a 256-day pilgrimage (dhammayata) to all Buddhist holy places in northern India. On his return to Pataliputra he celebrated a great festival of the Buddhist order and in the same year (258 BC, according to Eggermont) began his large-scale missionary activity. In numerous rock edicts strategically placed in all parts of his empire he propagated the principles of right conduct and, to all countries known to him, he sent ambassadors to spread the message of right conduct abroad. He instructed governors and district officers to have the principles of right conduct inscribed on rocks and pillars wherever possible, thereby producing a series of smaller rock edicts in which Ashoka openly confessed his Buddhist faith.

In the following year, 257 BC, he had the first four of altogether fourteen large rock edicts cut into rocks in the frontier regions of his empire. Eight more or less complete versions of these have been discovered so far. More recently two fragmentary versions came to light. One of them, a Greek–Aramaic bilingual, was found even in far-off Kandahar in Afghanistan. In these edicts Ashoka ordered all citizens of his empire to desist as far as possible from eating meat and he also prohibited illicit and immoral meetings. He indicated his goodwill to all neighbours beyond the borders of his empire: to the Cholas, Pandyas, Satyaputras, Keralaputras and to Tambapani (Sri Lanka) in the south and to King Anti-yoka of Syria (Antiochos II, 261 to 246 BC) and his neighbours in the west. Further, he ordered different ranks of officers to tour the area of their jurisdiction regularly to see that the rules of right conduct were followed.

Ashoka’s orders seem to have been resisted right from the beginning. He indirectly admitted this when, in the new series of rock edicts in the thirteenth year after his coronation, he stated: ‘Virtuous deeds are difficult to accomplish. He who tries to accomplish them faces a hard task.’ In order to break the resistance and to intensify the teaching of right conduct he appointed high officers called Pativedakas and Dhamma-Mahamatras that year. Whereas the Pativedakas had to control government institutions and inform Ashoka about their performance, the Dhamma-Mahamatras had to teach right conduct and supervise the people in this. They all had to report to the emperor, and he emphasised that these officers were to have access to him at all times even if he was having his meals or resting in his private rooms. These officers were ‘deployed everywhere, in Pataliputra as well as in all distant cities, in the private rooms of my brothers and sisters and all of my relatives’.

In the same year in which he appointed these special officers he also sent ambassadors (duta) to the distant countries of the West. As a unique event in Indian history the kings of these distant countries are mentioned by name in the thirteenth rock edict: the king of the Greeks (Yona), Antiyoka (as mentioned above), Tulamaya (Ptolomaios II, Philadelphos, 285–247 BC), Antekina (Antigonos Gonatas of Macedonia, 276–239 BC), Maka (Magas of Cyrene, c.300– 250 BC), Alikasudala (probably Alexander of Epirus, 272–255 BC). The independent states of southern India and Sri Lanka were once again visited by ambassadors and also some of the tribes in areas within the empire (e.g. the Andhras). The frequency of inscriptions in the border regions of the northwestern and southern provinces is an eloquent evidence of Ashoka’s missionary zeal.

This activity of imperial missions was unique in ancient history. Of greater consequence than the establishment of direct contact with the Hellenistic world was, however, the success of missions in the south and in Sri Lanka. There Ashoka’s son Mahinda personally appeared in order to teach right conduct. The northwest was also deeply affected by this missionary zeal. From southern India, Buddhism later travelled to southeast Asia and from northwest India it penetrated central Asia from where it reached China via the silk road in the first century AD.

Ashoka did not neglect his duties as a ruler while pursuing his missionary activities. In spite of his contrition after the conquest of Kalinga, he never thought of relinquishing his hold over this country or of sending back the people abducted from there. As an astute politician, he also did not express his contrition in the rock edicts which he put up in Kalinga itself (Dhauli and Jaugada). Instead of the text of the famous thirteenth rock edict we find in the so-called ‘separate edicts’ in Kalinga moving words.

Ashoka’s inscriptions also provide a great deal of important information about the organisation of the empire, which was divided into five parts. The central part consisted of Magadha and some of the adjacent old mahajanapadas. This part was under the direct administration of the emperor and, though not much is said about its administration, we may assume that it was conducted more or less in line with what had been mentioned by Megasthenes and Kautalya. Then there were four large provinces governed by princes (kumara or aryaputra) as governors or viceroys. The viceroy of the northwest resided at Taxila, the viceroy of the east at Tosali in Kalinga (near Bhubaneswar, the present capital of Odisha), the viceroy of the west at Ujjain, and the viceroy of the south at Suvarnagiri (near Kurnool in the Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh). As a newly discovered minor rock inscription at Panguraria in Madhya Pradesh is addressed by Ashoka to a kumara, this inscription is interpreted as an indication of the existence of a fifth province. But as the site of this inscription is only about 110 miles away from Ujjain, the famous capital of the western province, the kumara addressed in this inscription may well have been the viceroy of Ujjain.

The large provinces were divided into fairly extensive districts, headed by mahamatras. The mahamatras were probably the high officers mentioned by Megasthenes. They were responsible for the relation between the centre and the provinces. In provincial towns they also were appointed as judges (nagara-viyohalaka). In addition to the mahamatras the inscriptions mention the following ranks of officers: pradeshika, rajuka and yukta. The latter were petty officers, probably scribes and revenue collectors. The pradeshikas were in charge of administrative units which could be compared to the divisions of British India, which included several districts. Whether the rajuka was a district officer is not quite clear. The fourth pillar inscription belonging to the twenty-sixth year of Ashoka’s reign mentions that the rajuka is ‘appointed over many hundred thousands of people’ and was given special powers of penal jurisdiction, but the same inscription also states that the rajukas had to obey orders conveyed by royal emissaries (pulisani) who, as Ashoka emphasised, knew exactly what he wanted done.

References of this kind have often been used to show that Ashoka was running a highly centralised direct administration of his whole empire. But the pillar inscriptions which contain these latter references have so far been found only in the central Gangetic region and the Ganga–Yamuna Doab. Similar inscriptions may still be found at other places, but the pillar inscriptions discovered so far seem to indicate that this specific type of administration prevailed only in the central part of the empire, and that the provinces had a greater degree of administrative autonomy. However, recently conquered Kalinga may have been an exception. In its rock edict, the district administration of Samapa (Jaugada) was addressed directly without reference to the district’s viceroy (kumara) at Tosali.

In modern historical maps Ashoka’s empire is often shown as covering the whole subcontinent, with the exception of its southern tip. But if we look at the sites where Ashoka’s inscriptions have been found, we clearly see a definite regional pattern.

These sites demarcate the five parts of the empire. It is striking that the major rock edicts have so far been found only in the frontier provinces of the empire and not at its centre. Three were found in the northwest (Shahbazgarhi, Mansehra and Kandahar), two in the west (Girnar and Sopara), two in the south (Erragudi and Sannathi), two in the east (Dhauli and Jaugada), and one at the border between the central region and the northwestern province at Kalsi. It is also important to note that ten small rock edicts form a cluster in the southern province and that a good number of pillar inscriptions are concentrated in the central part of the empire and in the upper Ganga–Yamuna Doab. Moreover, the region around the provincial capital of Ujjain once must have formed another cluster, although only fragments of a pillar at Sanchi with Ashoka’s famous ‘schism edict’ and the newly discovered minor rock edict of Panguraria have survived. This high incidence of inscriptions in certain main parts of the empire and on the frontiers contrasts with the vast ‘empty’ space of the interior of the subcontinent where no inscriptions have been found which can be attributed to Ashoka.

Of course, it is not impossible that some may be still discovered but after more than a century of intensive research in this field it seems highly unlikely that the regional pattern mentioned above would have to be completely revised. This means that large parts of present Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh as well as Kerala and Tamil Nadu were administratively not yet included in the Maurya empire.

South of the Vindhya mountains the Mauryas mainly controlled the coastal areas and some of the interior near present Mysore, which they probably coveted because of the gold which was found there (Suvarnagiri means ‘gold mountain’). For the subcontinental empire it was essential to control the major trade routes. Most important was certainly the northern route which led from Pataliputra through the Gangetic plain and the Panjab to Afghanistan. Another led from Pataliputra west via Kausambi and then along the northern slope of the Vindhya mountains via Vidisha (Sanchi) and Ujjain to the port of Bharukacha (Broach). There was a further route from there along the west coast to the area of present Bombay where the great rock edicts of Sopara were found. Southern parts could be reached along the east coast or via a central route from Ujjain via Pratishthana (Paithan near Aurangabad) to Suvarnagiri. The northern portion of this route – at least up to Ujjain – had been known since the late Vedic period as Dakshinapatha (southern route). Large areas of the interior were inhabited by forest tribes (atavi) which had not yet been defeated. Ashoka announces to them his power and demands their submission ‘that they may not be killed’. From his inscriptions one gets the impression that Ashoka regarded them as potentially dangerous enemies of his empire. Moreover, the inscriptions explicitly mention unconquered (avijita) areas and independent neighbours (samamta) outside his realm.

This revision of the spatial extension of the Maurya empire nevertheless does not detract from its ‘All-India’ dimensions and that it marked the apex of the process of state formation which had started in the sixth century BC. The hub of the empire remained the old region of the major mahajanapadas in the triangle Delhi–Pataliputra–Ujjain. Campaigns of conquest had added the northwest, Kalinga and an enclave in the south to the empire. Control of major trade routes and of the coasts was of major importance for the access to mercantile wealth which must have been essential for imperial finance.

Ashoka’s greatness was due to his insight into the futility of further expansionist warfare, which would not have added much to the empire but would have impeded its consolidation. In order to conquer the vast areas in the interior, Ashoka would have had to fight many more bloody wars. About 2,000 years later the Mughal empire broke under the strain of incessant conquest when Aurangzeb tried to achieve what Ashoka had wisely avoided. In consolidating his empire, Ashoka adopted revolutionary methods. As emphasised by the Indian historian Romila Thapar, he must have realised that such a vast empire could not be based simply on the naked power polities of the Arthashastra but that it required some deeper legitimation. Therefore he adopted the doctrine of right conduct as the maxim of his policy. For the spread of this doctrine, he relied on the spiritual infrastructure provided by the new Buddhist community which was in ascendance in those days. But he carefully avoided equating his doctrine of right conduct with Buddhism as such. He also included the Brahmins and the sect of the Ajivikas in his religious policy.

After a period of unscrupulous power politics under the earlier rulers of Magadha, Indian kingship attained a moral dimension in Ashoka’s reign. But in the means he adopted, he was influenced by the tradition of statecraft epitomised by Kautalya. The Dhamma-Mahamatras which he put into the entourage of his relatives – from whom challenges to his power would be expected to come – were different in name only from Kautalya’s spies. This, of course, should not detract from the greatness of his vision, which prompted him to strive for an ethical legitimation of his imperial rule. His success was nevertheless not only due to his ideology and the strength of his army and administration but also to the relative backwardness of central and southern India in his day. When regional centres of power emerged in those parts of the country in the course of an autochthonous process of state formation in later centuries, the course of Indian history was changed once more and the great regional kingdoms of the early medieval period arose. In that period the old tradition of the legitimation of Hindu kings was revived and Ashoka’s great vision was eclipsed.

Written by Hermann Kulke & Dietmar Rothermund in "A History of India", Routledge, UK/USA, 2016, excerpts chapter 2. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.