The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c29: Chapter XX. Açoka, the Imperial Patron of Buddhism

The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c29

Language: English

v1.c29.8 — 3 parts

Chapter XX. Açoka, the Imperial Patron of Buddhism

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THE son and successor of Chandragupta is in Buddhist literature known as Bindusāra, whereas the Purāṇas give the name Nandasāra or Bhadrasāra: in such a matter the Buddhist testimony would have superior authority. The Greeks use instead of the name a title, Amitrochates = Sanskrit *Amitraghāta*, 'slayer of the foe,' a form which is quoted, perhaps with reference to this king, in the grammatical work of Patañjali¹.

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¹ *Mahābhāshya*, III, 2, 88. For ᾿Αμιτροχάτης (Athenaeus XIV, 67) Strabo has ᾿Αλλιτροχάδως.

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From Greek sources we learn concerning Bindusāra only that he was in communication with Seleucus Nicator, from whom he received an envoy named Daïmachus and solicited the purchase of sweet wine, figs, and a philosopher, the last named being refused on the ground that the sale of a sophist was not in accordance with Greek usage². The second Ptolemy, Philadelphus, also dispatched a representative, Dionysius, whose memoirs are unfortunately not preserved.

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² See Chapter XVII, p. 433.

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The Purāṇas attribute to Bindusāra a reign of twenty-five years, the Pāli books one of twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Whether he earned, or merely assumed, his soubriquet, we do not learn; but it is clear that he maintained intact the dominions inherited from Chandragupta. He had to deal with disaffection in Taxila, a city which was also to give trouble to his successor. It was allayed by the despatch of that destined successor, his son Açoka³.

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³ *Açokāvadāna* (=*Divyāvadāna*, XXVI), pp. 371 f.

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The events and occurrences of the life of Açoka, as we know them from the sole trustworthy source, namely his own inscriptions, are as follows. In the ninth year after his coronation he effected the conquest of the Kaliṅga country, i.e. Orissa with the Ganjām District of Madras. The slaughter and suffering which attended the conquest produced upon his mind such an impression that it proved the turning-point in his career. He joined the Buddhist order as a lay disciple, and thus subjected himself to the influence of ideas of which he was destined to be one of the greatest propagators. His active devotion to that faith began, however, two and a half years later, about the end of the eleventh year from his coronation, when he became a member of the *Sangha*, or order of monks, and in that capacity travelled from place to place, like the wandering Buddhist and Jain brothers, displaying energy, as he phrases it¹. This energy took the form of visits and gifts to Brāhmans, ascetics, and old people, instructions and discussions relating to the Buddhist *Dharma*, or religious rules and principles. At the end of this tour, which he claims to have had important results, not however very clearly indicated, he issued the first of his religious proclamations, an exhortation to his officials to adopt the like principle of energetic action; and he also orders that his missive should everywhere be engraved upon rocks and on stone pillars, where such existed.

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The practice of carving Buddhist sentiments in this manner on conspicuous objects was afterwards to receive a very wide extension, as is still visible in Tibet, in Central Asia, in China, and throughout the Buddhist world. During the following two years, the thirteenth and fourteenth, Açoka's activity must have been at its height. He issued no fewer than sixteen missives, of which fourteen are found engraved, in one corpus, in places as far distant as the extremities of his empire, at Girnār in Kāthiāwār, at Mānsehra and Shāhbāzgarhī in the Punjab, and twelve of the same with two others at Dhauli and Jaugada in Orissa². In these records, which seem to have been engraved in his fourteenth year, Açoka gives an account of the administrative and other measures which he had adopted. He had been active in causing wells to be dug by the roads, in providing medical aid for men and animals (perhaps a reference to animal hospitals, now known as *Panjroles*), and in propagating medical or useful plants; and this not only in his own dominions, but in those of the neighbouring, independent and quasi-independent, states of South India and the north-west frontier, nay, even as far as the Greek kingdom of Antiochus and beyond. Then he had made regulations restricting the slaughter of animals for food and especially on occasions of festivals and public shows.

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He had issued eloquent appeals for kindness and consideration in family relationships, in dealings with Brāhmans and teachers, in the mutual attitudes of different sects; further, he had denounced what he regarded as excess of profitless (i.e. Brāhman) ceremony in public and private life, and had inculcated economy, earnestness, and mutual exhortation. For the gay progresses of his predecessors on their hunting and holiday excursions (see Chapter XVI, pp. 416–7) he had substituted edifying spectacles and pious conferences; and he had arranged that he should himself always, even in his most private hours, be accessible to urgent calls—a serious inroad upon the strict apportionment of the royal time which we have detailed above (p. 492). Finally, in his thirteenth year he had instituted quinquennial circuits of the leading officials for the purpose of proclaiming the moral law as well as for the discharge of their normal functions. In the fourteenth year he appointed high officials, entitled *dharma-mahāmātras*, with the duty of inculcating piety, redressing misfortune or wrong, organising charitable endowments and gifts. Some of these officers stood in special relation to the establishments, and benevolences, of his various relatives, and the operations of others extended even to the foreign countries to which allusion has been made above.

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¹ Edict of Sahasrām, etc.

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² The Orissa versions omit nos. XI–XIII of the other groups and append two special ones.

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The next objects of Açoka's solicitude were the unsubdued frontier peoples, and persons in the provinces who had incurred penalties, concerning whom we have the two edicts addressed to his officers at Dhauli and Jaugada in the Kaliṅga country. Towards both classes he expresses a paternal regard: he is anxious to win the confidence of the borderers; and, as regards imprisoned persons, he solemnly exhorts his officials to make justice, patience, and forbearance the principles of their action. At the same time he gives instruction for the periodical public recitation of these admonitions, and repeats, for the benefit of the Kaliṅga officials, his intention of instituting quinquennial circuits. His sons, the Viceroys in Taxila and Ujjain, would follow a similar practice at intervals of three years.

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The ensuing period of about twelve years has left little record in documents emanating from the emperor himself. But we may plausibly conjecture that Açoka now entered upon that course of religious foundations which has given him his unique reputation as a builder of Buddhist shrines. Eighty-four thousand religious edifices—a conventional high number in India—are ascribed to him, the chief sites being the places famed as having been visited by Buddha; and he is said to have redistributed among them the relics of Buddha, which were originally portioned between eight favoured cities. The actual records are not at variance with such a supposition. We know that in his thirteenth, and again in his twentieth, year he dedicated cave-dwellings in the Barābar hills for the use of monks of the Ājīvika sect. In his fifteenth year he enlarged the *stūpa* of the Buddha Kanakamuni, not far from Kapilavastu; and during the twenty-first year he personally visited this site and that of Buddha's own birth-place, the garden of Lumbinī, setting up commemorative pillars and in the latter case granting a remission of taxation. In this period would also fall the inscriptions which attest his growing attachment to the Buddhist order and doctrine, that which ordains ecclesiastical penalties for schism¹, and the address to the community of monks, which among the sayings of Buddha, containing nothing that has not been well said, selects certain passages as pre-eminently suited for instruction and meditation².

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¹ Edict of Sārnāth, Kauçāmbī, and Sānchī.

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² Edict of Bhābrā.

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At this point we should doubtless interpolate a series of events which were of high importance for the spread of Buddhism, and which, though not mentioned by the emperor himself, are among all the legendary matter that has gathered round his name the portion best entitled to credence. It is in the nineteenth year from Açoka's coronation, the twenty-first according to a proposed chronological emendation, that the Mahāvaṃsa, the Pāli history of Buddhism in India and Ceylon, places the Third Council, held under the emperor's patronage in the Açokārāma at Pāṭaliputra. The Council, occasioned by sectarian differences among the Buddhist confession, of which as many as eighteen divisions are named, was held under the presidency of a famous monk, named Moggaliputta Tissa, to be distinguished from another Tissa mentioned in the same accounts as brother and viceroy of Açoka: in the northern texts he is called Upagupta. It deliberated during a period of nine months; and its ultimate decision is stated to have been in favour of the school of the Sthaviras, which afterwards prevailed in Ceylon. This remarkable gathering, though ignored by the northern Buddhists, can hardly be a fiction: it represents the culmination of the earlier form of Buddhism, which with the ensuing expansion was destined to undergo a profound modification of spirit. The canon of authoritative scriptures is stated to have been on this occasion definitely closed; and in the Kathāvatthu, composed at the time by Upagupta, we have a full record of the divergencies of opinion which led to its convention. Its dismissal was the signal for an organisation of the missionary activity which was already, as we have seen, included in the policy of Açoka. The names of the chief evangelisers of the different provinces are carefully preserved to us. To Kashmīr and Gandhāra was sent Madhyantika, and to the Yavana or Greek country (Bactria?), Mahārakshita; southern India, in its several provinces, claimed the apostles Mahādeva (Mahishamaṇḍala), Rakshita (Vanavāsa), Dharmarakshita a Yavana (Aparāntaka), and Mahādhar-marakshita (Mahārāshṭra); Majjhima proceeded to the Himālaya regions, and the fraternal pair Soṇa and Uttara, linked by the common vicissitudes of more than a single existence, to Suvarṇa-bhūmi, or a part of further India. That these are no mere legendary names we are permitted to know from some of the earliest surviving monuments of Buddhism, the *stūpas* of Sānchī, dating from the second, or first, century B.C., where relics of some of them have actually come to light¹. But their fame has been eclipsed by that of the saints entrusted with the conversion of Ceylon, who are said to have been no other than Açoka’s own children, his son the monk Mahendra and his daughter the nun Saṅghamitrā². Accompanied by the *sthaviras* Ṛishṭriya, Utriya, Çambala, and Bhadrasāra, they received a becoming welcome from the king of Ceylon, Devānāmpiya Tissa, who with his people was ultimately converted, and founded in honour of the evangelists the Great Vihāra, thenceforward the headquarters of Singhalese Buddhism. The special history of the island falls outside the scope of this chapter: the mission of the princely pair was treasured in the memory of Indian Buddhism; and its dispatch has been supposed to be depicted in a fresco on a wall in one of the caves of Ajantā³.

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¹ See Cunningham, *Bhilsa Topes*, pp. 285 sqq.; Maisey, *Sanchi*, pp. 108–115; Fleet, *J.R.A.S.*, 1910, pp. 425 f. For the *stūpas* of Sānchī see Chapter xxvi, pp. 627 ff.

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² On these relationships *v. inf.* p. 500.

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³ Griffiths, Pll. 94, 95. For the history of Ceylon see Chapter xxv.

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We now return to Açoka’s own rescripts, the concluding group of seven edicts, which are found inscribed upon pillars, the whole number at Delhi and six of them also at other spots in the central regions of Hindustān. They belong to the twenty-seventh and following year from the coronation. In tenor they open out no new courses of action, but repeat and continue the earlier principles. One of them, however, which will be textually introduced below (pp. 510–1), has an especial interest, as a recapitulation of the aims and measures of the reign.

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The whole duration of Açoka’s rule was, according to the concurrent testimony of the Brāhman and Buddhist historians, 36–37 years, reckoned, no doubt, from his accession. He himself makes mention of his brothers and sisters¹, a sufficient refutation of the legend that at his accession he began his reign by putting to death all the hundred other sons of Bindusāra. His elder brother, known in northern literature as Susīma, and in Pāli books as Sumana, doubtless did incur the fate of a vanquished rival: and it is to the son of Susīma, by name Nigrodha, that the king's conversion to Buddhism is ascribed². A full brother, Tissa, plays a considerable part in the Pāli story. He is said to have been for a time viceroy, and to have joined the Buddhist order, along with Agni-Brahmā, husband of Saṅghamitrā, in the fourth year after Açoka's coronation. A Chief Queen and her sons, no doubt the princes referred to as viceroys in Taxila and Ujjain, are mentioned in the edicts³, as also are the second queen Kāruvākī and her son Tīvara. The Chief Queen, in the Ceylon records named Asandhimitrā, may possibly have been the heroine of Açoka's youthful romance as Viceroy of Ujjain, the lovely maiden named Devī, of Vedisā (Vidiçā, the modern Bhīlsa), mother of Mahendra and Saṅghamitrā⁴. Another romance is connected with the name of Tishyarakshitā, represented as an attendant upon Asandhimitrā and Chief Queen of Açoka's later years, who, enacting the part of Potiphar's wife, is stated to have occasioned the blinding of the emperor's eldest son and heir, Kuṇāla, Viceroy of Taxila, and in a still later legend founder of the Buddhist dynasty of Khotan in Chinese Turkestān. The jealousy of Tishyarakshitā is said to have been aroused also by Açoka's devotion to the sacred Banyan tree at Gayā, under which the son of Çuddhodana had attained to Perfect Enlightenment. And thus on the Sānchī *stūpa*, where we find carved the propitiatory procession to the tree, by which the threatened mischief was appeased⁵, we have an actual first or second century representation in art, though by no means a portrait, of the great propagator of the Buddhist faith and morals and the imperially lavish founder of its shrines.

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¹ Rock Edict v.

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² According to the story Nigrodha was at the time about seven years old! The date is, of course, irreconcilable with the edicts.

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³ Pillar Edict vii.

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⁴ Mahendra is said to have been twenty years of age, and Saṅghamitrā eighteen, at the time of their ordination. As the former was born fourteen years before the coronation, this brings us to the year 6 after that event, which is again hardly to be reconciled with the edicts. It was for Mahendra, who was ordained by Moggaliputta Tissa and who afterwards succeeded the latter as head of his followers, that Açoka built the Açokārāma at Pāṭaliputra. As is well known, Mahendra is in the northern stories made the brother, and not the son, of Açoka, probably through confusion with Tissa. A son of Saṅghamitrā, Sumana by name, also became a monk. Of a daughter of Açoka, by name Chārumatī, a Nepāl legend will be mentioned below (p. 501).

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⁵ Foucher, *The Beginnings of Buddhist Art*, pp. 108–9. See also Chapter xxvi, p. 630, Pl. XXII, 60.

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Açoka's activity in this latter respect is not proportionally evidenced by existing monuments. When the Chinese pilgrims refer, as they constantly do, to a '*stūpa* of Açoka,' we cannot in strictness understand anything more than one of archaic style, such as are those still more or less intact at Sānchī or Bhārhut or figured on their sculptures and elsewhere, nor are we allowed to ascribe *en bloc* to the emperor himself the pillars at Delhi, Allahābād, Sārnāth, Rāmpūrvā and in other places, on which his edicts are found inscribed: he himself forbids this, when he orders his edicts to be engraven on pillars, where such should be found¹. The only works of this nature particularised by him in the edicts relating to the places in question are the double enlargement of the *stūpa* of Koṇagamana at Niglīva, the pillar erected at the same place and that at the Lumbinī garden: the cave-dwellings assigned to the Ājīvika monks in the Barābar hills are not expressly stated to have been constructed by Açoka's orders. When we have added the stone railing round the Bodhi-tree, which seems to be figured on the *stūpa* of Sānchī (*v. sup.* p. 500), we have completed the list of what can certainly be ascribed to him. But, no doubt, the remains of the palace, the Açokārāma, the Kukkuṭārāma, and other erections at Pāṭaliputra may be plausibly claimed for him²; and we may also mention the completion on his behalf, by the Yavana king Tushāspha, of the Sudarçana tank in Junāgarh, which had been begun by his grandfather Chandragupta³. For the rest we must be content to believe that the great reputation which he enjoyed in this respect had a solid foundation.

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¹ Edict of Sahasrām etc. (the earliest edict). Pillars set up by Açoka's own orders are mentioned in Pillar Edict VII (quoted in full *inf.* p. 510). In other cases style and archaeological considerations must decide.

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² Waddell, *Report on the Excavations at Pāṭaliputra (Patna)*, Calcutta, 1903.

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³ *Ep. Ind.* VIII, pp. 46–7.

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Two famous cities in frontier countries have a traditional claim to Açoka as founder. The former is Çrīnagar, the capital of Kashmīr, embracing the site of the old Çrīnagarī, which is connected with his name⁴. In Nepāl the ancient city of Deo-Pātan (Deva-pattana) and the adjacent village of Chabāhil are associated with a visit of Açoka accompanied by a daughter Chārumatī and her Kshatriya husband Devapāla⁵. The two latter are said to have remained in the country and to have built respectively a nunnery and a monastery, the latter left unfinished by its founder. The legend—for such it is—derives some support from the archaic style of the four neighbouring *stūpas* ascribed to Açoka.

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⁴ *Rājataraṅgiṇī*, translation of Sir M. A. Stein, I, ll. 101–7, and the notes.

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⁵ Sylvain Lévi, *Le Nepal* (Musée Guimet, 1905–8), I, pp. 67 and 263; II, 24, 336; III, 161 f.

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The name Açoka occurs in only one of the known inscriptions¹. Elsewhere the emperor employs (in conjunction with *rājā*, ‘king’) the official titles *devānām priya*, ‘dear to the gods,’ and *priyadarçana*, ‘of friendly mien.’ The former style—which in later ages the popular grumbling, so humorously common in India, as in other countries, diverted to the sense of ‘fool’—is known to have been employed by contemporary kings in Ceylon, and by Açoka’s grandson (or still more remote descendant) Daçaratha, so that it was probably normal; indeed Açoka himself once uses the plural in the sense practically of ‘kings.’ *Priyadarçin* also, which has been well rendered ‘gracious,’ may represent a customary view that the king should wear ‘a mild, pleasant, and composed aspect’². But it is certainly quite possible, as M. Senart suggests³, that it was adopted by Açoka as his ordination name.

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¹ Found in 1915 at Maski in the Raichūr Dist. of Hyderābād; see *Hyderabad Arch. Series*, No. 1, 1915.

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² *Mbh.* XII, 67, 39; cf. 57, 19. In the Kharoshṭhī documents from Chinese Turkestān *priyadarçana* is a common form of polite address; see *Kharosthī Inscriptions, Part I*, 1920, *passim*.

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³ *Les Inscriptions de Piyadasi*, II, pp. 227–8.

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The chronology of the reign is fixed within wide limits by the mention in the thirteenth Rock Edict of ‘the Yona King Antiochus and beyond that Antiochus to where dwell the four kings severally named Ptolemy (Philadelphus of Egypt, 285–247 B.C.), Antigonus (Gonatas of Macedon, 278–239), Magas (of Cyrene, died 258), and Alexander (of Epirus, 272–258?).’ The fact that these are all supposed to be reigning makes it unlikely that the edict was issued long after the year 258 B.C., when one, if not two, of them died. A prior limit of any value does not seem to be supplied by the passage, inasmuch as Antiochus Theos, whose reign began in 261 B.C., was preceded by a sovereign, his father, of like name. The omission of the Bactrian ruler Diodotus, whose independence of the Seleucid empire dates from about 250 B.C., confirms the inference that the edict is not long posterior to the year 258. Adopting 258–7 as its provisional date, and accepting the arguments which assign it to the fourteenth year, we arrive at 270 B.C. as the latest year for the coronation: but plainly nothing in the calculation forbids an earlier date. That the coronation was posterior by four years to the actual beginning of the reign is affirmed by the Ceylon tradition and perhaps also indirectly implied by the same: which would give the year 274 b.c. as the latest possible for Açoka’s accession. But this may reasonably be suspected as an invention made in the interest of a chronological system¹. A provisional chronological scheme of the reign might then take shape as follows:

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¹ A supposition broached and rejected by M. Senart, *op. cit.* ii, pp. 237–8. But possibly Açoka may have been *de facto* ruler during the last years of Bindusāra, which may explain the extra three years assigned by the Buddhists to that king (*supra*, p. 495).

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274 b.c. at latest: accession. 270 b.c. at latest: coronation. 262 b.c. at latest: conquest of Kaliṅga and adhesion to Buddhism. 260 b.c. at latest: entry into the order of monks and beginning of active propaganda. 259 b.c. at latest: issue of first Edict (that of Sahasrām, Rūpnāth, Bairāt and Brahmagiri). 258–7 b.c. at latest: issue of the fourteen Rock Edicts; dedication of cave dwellings in the Barābar hills. 256 b.c. at latest: visit to Kapilavastu. 253 b.c.?: Council of Pāṭaliputra. 250 b.c. at latest: second visit to Kapilavastu and visit to the Lumbinī garden. 243–2 b.c. at latest: issue of Pillar Edicts. 237–6 b.c.?: death of Açoka (on the assumption that the reign lasted 36 or 37 years, as the Purāṇas and Pāli books affirm).

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According to the Ceylon tradition the coronation of Açoka took place 218 years (i.e. in the 219th year) after the death of Buddha, and the Council in the 236th year. The tradition of Khotan on the other hand, as reported in Tibetan books², places the 50th year (out of 55) in the reign at an interval of 234 years from the *Parinirvāṇa*. The Chinese and Sanskrit reckonings are, as is well known, vitiated by confusion with another Açoka, Kālāçoka or Kākavarṇa of the Çiçunāga dynasty, who is placed one century after Buddha. The number 218 may very well be deserving of credit as a genuine tradition³; but it is of value for the determination rather of the date of Buddha than that of Açoka. A much discussed number 256 in the earliest edict has no bearing upon chronology⁴.

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² Rockhill, *Life of the Buddha*, p. 233, and the Tibetan texts there named.

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³ Geiger's translation of the *Mahāvaṃsa*, Introduction, pp. xxxi sqq.

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⁴ F. W. Thomas, *Ind. Ant.*, 1908, pp. 19–23, and *Les Vivāsāḥ d’Açoka* (*Jour. As.*, Série x, xv, pp. 507–22).

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The activity of Açoka lay wholly, so far as we are informed of it, in the sphere of *dharma*, i.e. according to the Indian definition, the sphere of conduct leading to heaven or to final liberation⁵; we may say, the spheres of religion and morality. It therefore furnishes a complement to the strictly political system of the Arthaçāstra. We may consider it under the aspects of the emperor's principles and personal action, his admonitions, and his ordinances and institutions.

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⁵ For the employment of the word by Açoka see Senart, *Les Inscriptions de Piyadasi*, ii, pp. 308 f.

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It was, as we have seen, the events of the Kaliṅga war that awoke the humanitarian and missionary spirit in Aṣoka. He was impressed both by the actual horrors of the campaign and by the interference with the peaceful and moral influence of the religious teachers. The chords which were struck have in Indian life a dominant note: Aṣoka attached himself to the Buddhist religion, the most important of those which upheld the doctrines of *ahiṃsā* and *maitrī*, abstinence from doing hurt to, and benevolent feeling towards, living creatures. Two and a half years later he awoke to the possibilities of his position, joined the order of monks, and entered upon a course of 'activity.'

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The importance of energetic action by the sovereign was not a new conception; the Indian writers on policy make it the subject of constant admonition to their rulers (*v. sup.* p. 492). Nor was the idea of royal responsibility for the virtue of the people a novelty: the king is, as we have seen (*ibid.*), the upholder of *dharma* and incurs a proportion of the sin of the people, if he exacts the taxes without maintaining the social order. But Aṣoka gives to these principles a new force and direction by calling upon all to participate in his energy and by fixing attention upon moral improvement as a means to happiness in the present, and further in another, life. His position is therefore not merely paternal, as the books would require, and as he himself professes¹: he has also a moral and religious responsibility and mission.

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¹ Kaliṅga Edicts I and II.

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The degree of Aṣoka's appreciation of Buddhism is not very easily definable; and it was even at one time contended that his early faith, which laid such special stress upon the doctrine of benevolence, was rather that of Jainism. He emphasises the principle of tolerance, wishes for the real prosperity of all sects, and, while not discouraging discussion, always a prominent feature of Indian religious life, earnestly preaches avoidance of offence. If he discountenances what he considers vain ceremonials and certain popular entertainments, which were occasions of animal slaughter, his attitude to the Brāhman system in general is benevolent and respectful: he believes in the gods and would have his people strive for heaven. Nevertheless, Aṣoka was undoubtedly a Buddhist: he became a lay disciple and then a monk; later he proclaims his regard for the religion and his personal faith¹; he addresses the church, naming certain passages from the scriptures as specially suitable for teaching and study; he denounces penalties for schism; he holds a council which defines the canon; and finally he stands out as by far the greatest author of the religious foundations of the sect. On the other hand we hear from him nothing concerning the deeper ideas or fundamental tenets of the faith; there is no mention of the Four Grand Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Chain of Causation, the supernatural quality of Buddha: the word and the idea of *Nirvāṇa* fail to occur; and the innumerable points of difference which occupied the several sects are likewise ignored. Açoka, therefore, is no theologian or philosopher; and only in the saying that the gift of *dharma* is above all other gifts, and in the preference of meditation to liberality, do we find any trace of such modes of thought.

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¹ Edict of Bhābrā (*prasāda* in Buddhist phraseology denotes ‘faith’).

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Of Açoka’s personal action the most important features were his religious tours and progresses, which began at the end of the eleventh year. They were the occasion of personal intercourse with the people, including discussions and instructions in religious matters. In the course of these, and on other occasions, he was wont to issue religious proclamations, which were published by his officials and inscribed on rocks and pillars. He claims that in little more than a year he had brought the Brāhman gods to the knowledge of those people in India, i.e. the wild tribes, who had formerly known nothing of them². Further he organised shows and processions exhibiting figures of the gods in their celestial cars, of sacred elephants, and fires³. The practice of earlier times, which made the king accessible to the public only at certain hours, he modified to the extent of being ready to transact business or see officials even in his most private seclusion⁴. He subjected his household to supervision by special religious dignities: and finally he restricted the diet of the palace practically to the point of vegetarianism⁵. His activity in causing trees to be planted by the roads, and wells for travellers to be constructed at every half-koss, also his provision of medical aid for men and animals, and his propagation of useful plants, need not be further dwelt upon: only in degree were they a new feature of royal beneficence in India⁶.

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² Edict of Sahasrām etc.

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³ Rock Edict iv.

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⁴ Rock Edict vi.

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⁵ Rock Edict i; Pillar Edict v.

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⁶ Bühler, *Z.D.M.G.*, xxxvii, pp. 101–2, and as regards trees, wells etc., cf. *Arthaçāstra*, 19.

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Açoka’s relations with the Buddhist *Saṅgha* were, no doubt, friendly and cordial. He had himself been ordained, as had his brother, and by the surrender of his son and daughter also he had acquired a right to the title ‘Kinsman of the Faith.’ But no doubt the monkish chronicles go too far in representing his devotion as without bounds. Even his lavish expenditure upon religious edifices is exaggerated in the statement that he thrice gave away, and purchased back, Jambu-dvīpa or the continent of India¹! It can hardly be that an emperor so conscious of the responsibilities of his unique position should have been made more amenable to the authority of a religious order by himself joining it. Nor is there in his actual references to the *Saṅgha* any note of special deference; nor again do his ordinances accord to it any special regard, since the *parishads* whose affairs were to be supervised by the *dharma-mahāmātras* included the managing committees of all sects. On the other hand, we fail to detect even in the advice which Açoka gives to the *Saṅgha* concerning specially applicable passages from the scriptures any note of the arrogance which might have betrayed an emperor himself at home in the order. In fact such an attitude would be both un-Indian (as sanctity and learning in India excite a *genuine* respect) and anachronistic in what was still an age of faith. On the whole, easy as it would be to imagine flaws, one way or the other, in Açoka’s relations with the clergy, it would be hard to demonstrate them to a sound intelligence: by his grasp of the essential he rises superior to such personal suspicions.

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¹ Hiuen Tsiang states that the fact was recorded in an inscription on the pillar at Pāṭaliputra (trans. Beal, II, p. 91).

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Of the Buddhist leaders with whom he is said to have been in correspondence the most important is Upagupta or Moggaliputta Tissa. This divine is reckoned as fifth in the succession of Vinaya teachers from the time of Buddha, the series being Upāli, Dāsaka, Sonaka, Siggava and Chaṇḍavajji, Moggaliputta Tissa². Tissa was 60 years old at the time of Açoka’s coronation, and he died 26 years later, being succeeded by Mahendra. Apart from the Kathāvatthu he is not known as an author, his great monument being the Third Council. A famous *stūpa* was built in his honour at Mathurā.

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² The identity of this Tissa with Upagupta was proved by Col. L. Waddell in the *Journal* (1897, pp. 76–84) and *Proceedings* (1899, pp. 70–5) of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Concerning the succession see Geiger’s translation of the *Mahāvaṃsa*, Introduction, pp. xlvii f.

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Mention has already been made of the missionary leaders, whose activity is said to have followed upon the Third Council, and of Açoka's several relatives who joined the order (*v. sup.* p. 499). The Pāli books mention also a Mahāvaruṇa, and the two sons of Kuntī, Tissa and Sumitta, who are said to have died after Açoka's eighth year: they are not otherwise known.

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The northern books¹ mention a minister Rādhāgupta, who is said to have played an important part in Açoka's attainment of sovereignty and his administration; and another minister, the Arhat Yaças, associated with the Khotan legend of Kustana. The existence of the minister Yaças seems deserving of credence as he is mentioned in the Sūtrālaṃkāra of Açvaghosha².

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¹ *Açokāvadāna* (=*Divyāvadāna*, xxix) and *Kuṇālāvadāna* (=*ibid.* xxvii).

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² Translated from the Chinese by E. Huber (Paris, 1908); see the Index.

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The moral exhortations which Açoka most frequently addresses to his people refer to the practice of simple virtues, namely proper treatment of slaves and servants, obedience to father and mother, generosity and respect to friends, companions, relations, ascetics, and Brāhmans, abstinence from cruelty to living creatures. For this imperial insistence upon such obvious duties we are right to demand some explanation; and we may perhaps find an explanation in his statement that there had been during a long period a deterioration in these respects³. Not to attribute to Açoka the character merely of a retrospective pessimism, we may think of the social and other changes which might naturally accompany the growth of a great empire, the succession of dynastic tragedies, the subjugation of small states, the Greek invasion, and the initiation of numerous sects. And, apart from the general responsibility of a paternal rule, he might have found even in the Arthaçāstra (19, p. 47) the principle that the royal authority should ensure the observance of proper discipline in the household, an obligation which even the modern state does not decline. As regards the aged and the poor, who are placed under the care of religious officials⁴, we have seen that—in the absence of a 'poor law'—the care of such was a traditional obligation of royalty (*v. sup.* p. 487). These primary admonitions recur also in the latest of the edicts, as they had been prominent, along with the appeal for energy and mutual exhortation, in the earliest. But we hear also from the beginning of piety—friendship in piety, liberality in piety, kinship in piety—concord and the growth of sects in essential matters, in a word of religion, *dharma*, as something more than *çīla*, 'morality.' It was to be expected that with advancing years the religious feeling should acquire a stronger hold; whence we are not surprised to find in the later edicts a special exhortation to self-examination and the view that the chief thing is personal adherence to a man's adopted faith. In a country where during later ages the ecstatic, metaphysical, and fanciful aspects of religion have predominated, the sober Buddhist piety revealed in the edicts (and not uncommonly evidenced in the literature of Buddhism, both of the Great and Little Vehicles) deserves remark.

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³ Rock Edict iv.

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⁴ Rock Edict v.

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The measures, enactments, and institutions of Açoka need not more than moderately detain us. His philanthropic activity in providing wells and trees along the roads, in propagating medicinal plants, and in founding hospitals for men and animals—an activity not confined to his own dominions—and further his great rôle as propagator of his religion and pious founder, also his regulations concerning the slaughter and treatment of animals, have already received due notice. To the same sphere belong his rules concerning prisoners, the reservation of capital punishment, and the respite of the condemned during three days with a view to their spiritual welfare and edifying works.

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The official system remained for the most part unchanged¹. The presence of Açoka's envoys even as far as the various Greek kingdoms is plainly contemplated. The general term denoting the superior officials is *mahāmātra*, while the lower, especially the clerkly ranks, are entitled *yukta*. The highest local officers 'set over many hundreds of thousands of people'—corresponding no doubt to the *sthānikas* of the Arthaçāstra—are mentioned as *rājūkas*², and with them are associated *prādeçikas*, perhaps the *pradeshṭris* whose functions we have already defined. It is to these officers that a number of the edicts are addressed. They are exhorted to adopt towards the people under their charge the mild, patient, and benevolent principles of the emperor himself: they are compared to nurses entrusted with the charge of children. An institution several times referred to is the *anusaṃyāna*, or periodical tour, still a feature of Indian administration. This was not an innovation on the part of Açoka, but a part of the system which he inherited³. However, he added to the duties of the touring officials, as early as his thirteenth year, that of following his own example in making their visitations the occasion of benevolent activity and religious propaganda. For this purpose, however, he himself organised a special ecclesiastical hierarchy of religious officers (*dharma-mahāmātra*), to whom these two functions were primarily assigned, and who moreover superintended the bounties of his own household, and those of his queens, his sons, and other relatives, and organised the activities of the committees and councils (*parishad*) at the head of the Buddhist, Jain, Ājīvika and other sects. The tolerance of all sects as regards liberty of residence in every district seems also to be a feature of Açoka’s own conception, as it is opposed to the rule of the Arthaçāstra (19, p. 48).

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¹ For a full discussion see Senart, *Les Inscriptions de Piyadasi*, II, pp. 278 f.

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² Or *rajjugrāhakas*, as in the Pāli books = 'land-measurers,' the ἀγρονόμοι of Megasthenes, concerning whom *v. sup.* p. 417. Cf. Bühler, *Z.D.M.G.*, XLVII, pp. 466–71.

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³ This is implied by Açoka himself (Rock Edict III): cf. Bühler, *Z.D.M.G.*, XLI, p. 19.

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Here we conclude our analytical appreciation of Açoka’s rule. But the personality which in so un-Indian a fashion pervades the whole of his proclamations—a personality which in its rather high-strung, and by consequence partly plaintive, energy recalls another flawless imperial saint, the Roman Marcus Aurelius—can be communicated only in his own words: and we are therefore justified in citing two of his edicts, one a normal specimen of their tone, and the second the solemn review of his measures, which, published in the twenty-seventh year from his consecration, we have ventured to designate as ‘the testament of Açoka.’

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ROCK EDICT IV.

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In the past, during many centuries, there has been steady growth in the practice of taking life, ill-usage of living creatures, misbehaviour among relatives, misbehaviour towards Brāhmans and ascetics. But now through the pious observance of king Piyadasi, dear to the gods, the signal of the drum has become a signal of piety, displaying to the people sights of celestial cars, sights of elephants, bonfires, and other heavenly shapes. In such wise as has not been before in many centuries, there has been at present, owing to the inculcation of piety by king Piyadasi, dear to the gods, growth in abstinence from taking life, in abstinence from ill-usage of living creatures, in proper behaviour towards relatives, proper behaviour towards Brāhmans and ascetics, obedience to mother and father, obedience to elders. In these and other manifold ways pious observance has grown, and this pious observance king Piyadasi, dear to the gods, will make still to grow. The sons, also, and grandsons, and great-grandsons of king Piyadasi, dear to the gods, will foster this pious observance until the end of time. Standing fast by piety and morality, they will inculcate piety. For this is the best action, inculcation of piety: pious observance, again, is not found in an immoral person. Hence in this respect also growth and no falling off is good. To this end has this been inscribed, that men may effect growth in this respect and that falling off may not be suffered. This has been inscribed by king Piyadasi, dear to the gods, having been consecrated twelve years.

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PILLAR EDICT VII.

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Thus says king Piyadasi, dear to the gods:

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The kings who were in the past wished thus: 'How may the people grow with the growth of piety?' The people, however, did not grow with a proper growth in piety.

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In this matter thus says king Piyadasi, dear to the gods:

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This thought came to me: In the past the kings had this wish: 'How may the people grow with a proper growth in piety?' The people, however, did not grow with a proper growth in piety. Whereby then can the people be made to conform? Whereby can the people be made to grow with a proper growth in piety? Whereby can I elevate any of them by a growth in piety?

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In this matter thus says king Piyadasi, dear to the gods:

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This thought came to me, 'I will publish precepts of piety, I will inculcate instructions in piety: hearing these, the people will conform, will be elevated, and will grow strongly with the growth of piety.' For this purpose precepts of piety were published, manifold instructions in piety were enjoined, so that my officers in charge of large populations might expound them and spread them abroad. The governors also, in charge of many hundred thousand lives, they also were ordered, 'thus and thus catechise the persons of the establishment of piety.'

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Thus says Piyadasi, dear to the gods:

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With the same object pillars of piety were made by me, dignitaries of piety were instituted, precepts of piety were proclaimed.

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Thus says king Piyadasi, dear to the gods:

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On the roads also banyans were planted, to give shade to cattle and men: mango-gardens were planted: and at each half-koss wells were dug: also rest-houses were made: many watering-stations also were made in this and that place for the comfort of cattle and men. Little indeed is mere comfort: for with various gratifications the people have been gratified both by previous kings and by myself. But, that they might conform with a conformity in piety, for this reason was this done by me.

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Thus says Piyadasi, dear to the gods:

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Dignitaries of piety were appointed by me in charge of manifold indulgences, these both for ascetics and for householders; also over all sects were they appointed. Over the affairs of the Saṅgha also were they set, 'these shall be appointed'; likewise over Brāhmans, Ājīvikas also were they set, 'these shall be appointed.' Over Nirgranthas also were they set, 'these shall be appointed. Over various sects also were they set, 'these shall be appointed.' According to circumstances such and such dignitaries were set over such and such. Dignitaries of piety also were appointed over both these and all other sects.

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Thus says king Piyadasi, dear to the gods:

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These and various other classes were appointed in charge of the distribution of charity, both my own and that of the queens. And in my whole harem they carry out in manifold fashions such and such measures of satisfaction, both here and in all quarters. The same has been done as regards the distribution of charity on the part of my sons and the other princes, 'these shall be appointed over the distributions of charity,' with a view to ensamples of piety and for conformity to piety. For this is an ensample of piety and conformity to piety, when in the people compassion, liberality, truth, honesty, mildness, and goodness shall thereby be increased.

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Thus says king Piyadasi, dear to the gods:

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Whatsoever good deeds have been done by me, thereto the people have conformed, and those they copy. And thereby they have grown and will grow in obedience to mothers and fathers, in obedience to venerable persons, in conformity to the old, in right behaviour towards Brāhmans and ascetics, the poor and wretched, slaves and servants.

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Thus says king Piyadasi, dear to the gods:

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This growth in piety is a growth in two respects, in the restraints of piety and in considerateness. Now of these restraint by piety is a little thing, but considerateness a greater. The restraint of piety is this, that I have had such and such creatures made exempt from slaughter, and there are other restraints of piety which have been ordained by me. But by considerateness there has been to a greater degree a growth in piety on the part of men, conducing to abstention from ill-usage to living creatures and to non-taking of life. This was done to this end, that sons and grandsons may continue therein as long as moon and sun endure, and that they may conform accordingly. For by so conforming this life and the future life are secured. This Edict of Piety was inscribed by me, when I had been six and twenty years consecrated.

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Thus says the dear to the gods:

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Where there are stone pillars or stone slabs, there this Edict of Piety is to be inscribed, that it may be permanent.

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The dynastic successors of Açoka are by the Brāhman and Buddhist traditions diversely reported according to the following scheme:

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¹ The names accompanied by an asterisk appear only in certain recensions of the Purānic list.

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These meagre and conflicting lists are evidently no material for history: but they supply certain indications which may hereafter be verified. One of the Buddhist sources includes in the dynasty the name of Pushyamitra, really the founder of the succeeding line of the Çuṅgas: he was commander-in-chief to Bṛihadratha and he availed himself of a grand review of the army to overthrow and slay his master¹. Lest this error of the Buddhists should lead us wholly to prefer the Brāhman accounts, let us observe that the latter differ in numerous particulars, some naming more kings than others, and all presenting diversities of spelling: moreover, none of them justifies in detail the total of 137 years which they unanimously ascribe to the whole Maurya dynasty.

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¹ Bāṇa's *Harshacharita* (trans. Cowell and Thomas), p. 193.

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The existence of some of the kings named in the list is avouched by independent evidence. Daçaratha is known by three inscriptions bestowing on the Ājīvika sect caves in the Nāgārjunī hills²: Samprati is mentioned in the Jain tradition as a convert of their patriarch Suhastin³. Jaloka is celebrated in the history of Kashmīr, as a great propagator of Çaivism and for a time a persecutor of the Buddhists, further as having freed the country from an invasion of Mlecchas, who would be Greeks, and a conqueror who extended his dominions as far as Kanyākubja or Kanauj.

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² *Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum*, i, pp. 103-4, 134-5.

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³ See Jacobi's note in *S.B.E.*, xxii, p. 290 (*Kalpasūtra*).

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The extreme confusion reigning in the legends is probably, as was indicated long ago, to be explained by a division of the empire, perhaps beginning after Samprati⁴. The Buddhists will then give the western line, as is indicated by the fact that Vīrasena is represented as ruling in Gandhāra⁵ and further by the fact that Sophagasenus, or Subhāgasena, with whom Antiochus the Great renewed an ancestral friendship in 206 b.c.⁶, is indicated by his name as a member of this line. This series will then have been terminated by the Greek conquest of the Punjab under Euthydemus and his successors. At Pāṭaliputra the second line may have held out a little longer, until about the year 184 b.c., when it was overthrown by Pushyamitra, whose power may have centred about Ujjain, and who, as is indicated in the drama of Kālidāsa called the *Mālavikāgnimitra*, succeeded to the struggle with the Greeks. But descendants of Açoka were as late as the seventh century A.D., if we may trust the statement of Hiuen Tsiang, still in possession of small dominions in eastern India: for he relates that shortly before his visit Pūrṇavarman, king of Magadha, a descendant of Açoka, had restored the Bodhi-tree, which had been destroyed by Çaçāṅka, otherwise named Narendragupta, of Karṇasuvarṇa, or Bengal¹.

Linked texts (19)

Mahābhārata — Vyāsa, Sanskrit
Kathāvatthu — Moggaliputta Tissa, Pāli
Rājataraṅgiṇī — Kalhaṇa, Sanskrit
Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit
Divyāvadāna — Sanskrit
Aśokāvadāna — Sanskrit
Mahāvaṃsa — Pāli
Major Rock Edict III — Prakrit
Major Rock Edict IV — Prakrit
Major Rock Edict V — Prakrit
Pillar Edict VII — Prakrit
Lumbinī
Pāṭaliputra
Jaugada
Dhauli
Srinagar
Sahasrām edict — Prakrit
Rūpnāth edict (ed. Bühler 1877) — Prakrit
Bairāṭ edict (ed. Bühler 1877) — Prakrit

The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c29: Chapter XX. Açoka, the Imperial Patron of Buddhism

Contents

Chapter XX. Açoka, the Imperial Patron of Buddhism

Linked texts (19)