Buddhist India c19.25

c19.25

All the accounts agree that this was no easy task. His elder brother, the viceroy of Takka-silā in the Panjab, opposed him, and it was only after a severe struggle, and not without bloodshed, including the death of his brother, that Asoka made his way to the throne. The details of the struggle differ in the different stories, and there is a passing expression in one of the Edicts (all the more valuable because it is incidental) of brothers of the King being still alive well on in his reign.¹ On the whole, I am inclined to believe that the tradition of a disputed succession is founded on fact. *The Chronicles* say that Asoka was not formally anointed king till between the fourth and the fifth year after Bindusāra's death, and the language of the Edicts, which are dated, whenever they are dated, from the formal anointing, and not from the succession, would harmonise with this.