The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c23.84

c23.84

The character of Asoka must be deduced from his words. The style is of the man, and I firmly believe that the edicts express his thoughts in his own words. They are written in a style far too peculiar and distinctive to be the work of a Secretary of State, and are alive with personal feeling. No secretary would have dared to put in his master's mouth the passionate expressions of remorse for the misery caused by the Kalinga war, leading up to the resolve to eschew aggressive warfare for the rest of his life, and the declaration that 'although a man do him an injury, His Majesty holds that it must be patiently borne, as far as it possibly can be borne'.¹