Maurya and Shunga Art c11.7

c11.7

The prohibition of sacrificial slaughter is perfectly understandable, though there can be no doubt that it was specifically directed against secular Brahmanism. But Aśoka's ordinance in respect of the general prohibition of 'samājas' inspite of his considering some 'samājas' beneficial reveals his attitude towards popular gatherings and social festivities. Almost invariably associated with 'utsava', 'samājas' afforded the opportunity for the display along with other things, of some of the popular arts, namely ‘gīta’ or songs, ‘nṛitya’ or dances and ‘vādita’ or instrumental music, as we have it in the Hātigumphā inscription of Khāravela. Indeed, all authorities agree that the ‘samāja,’ inspite of its objectionable features, was a sort of a national institution; Kautilya even enumerates ‘utsava’, ‘samāja’ and ‘vihāra’ as the three important national institutions that a conqueror must respect.⁷⁸ If such is Aśoka’s general attitude towards popular gatherings and social festivities his attitude towards popular demonstrations of religion is still more revealing. “Bherīghoso aho dhammaghosho” does no longer mean that the reverberation of the war-drums has become the reverberation of Law. Wickramsinghe and Barua have convincingly proved that the entire passage in its context has nothing to suggest that Aśoka turned a pacifist by abandoning all aggressive militarism. Indeed, “the sound of the drum” says Barua, “symbolises the popular religious demonstration, and that of piety, the ‘dhammānusathi’. It was by means of moral instructions that Aśoka claims to have obtained results that could not be achieved by the age-old traditional method in the past, during many hundred years. In other words, here Aśoka’s intention is to compare and contrast the effects of the two methods, one, the time-honoured method of popular religious demonstrations, and the other, the new method of moral instructions adopted by him.”⁷⁹ Amongst the age-old methods of popular religious demonstration were such things as ‘vimāna-darsanā hasti-darsanā agikhamdhāni cha añāni cha divyāni rūpāni’ which were showed to the people. A mass of literature has grown round the interpretation of these terms, but all authorities agree that actual presentations or visual representations were made of processions of chariots, elephants, bonfires, illuminations etc. “The main device”, again says Barua, “as might be inferred from the Achchharā verses in the ‘Samyutta Nikāya’ and the prescriptions in the ‘Arthaśāstra’ was the ‘yātrā’ or ceremonial procession organised on the pattern of royal processions to the pleasure garden composed of chariots, elephants, horses, ships, palanquins, drummers, singers, dancers, torch-bearers, actual or artificial, portable picture-galleries, and the like.” The portable picture-galleries are mentioned as ‘caraṇa-chitras’ which the Buddha highly speaks of and consisted, according to Buddhaghosha, of pictures of happy and unhappy destinies of men after death with appropriate labels attached to them and shown in portable galleries.⁸⁰ It can be well imagined that these ‘caraṇa-chitras’ were nothing else than ‘lekhya-chitras’ as distinguished from ‘lepa-chittas’ of Pāli and ‘lepya-chitras’ of Sanskrit tradition. Indeed, both ‘lekhya-chitras’ and ‘caraṇa-chitras’ are the same as the ‘paṭa-chitras’ or scroll-paintings of later date, the traditional vehicle of popular Indian religious and cultural education. The passages quoted above if anything show beyond doubt that Aśoka was not in favour of such methods of edification of religion, and adopted a different method altogether. Rock Edict Nine throws further light on his attitude towards the religion and culture of the people. Therein he clearly expresses himself against folk religious rites and practices, the ‘vratas’ of mediaeval and present day, of evident ethnic and primitive significance.