The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s4.259

c10.s4.259

must be able to make—must indeed make—conquests not by the sword alone but by the power of persuasion or of his own attraction; one recalls how Asoka had exalted conquest by the Buddhist Dhamma above that by the sword,¹ and how in the tradition, when Taxila revolted, he reduced it peacefully without recourse to arms. An excellent example of a Chakravartin is T'ai Tsong, the virtual founder of the T'ang dynasty in China, who could subdue Turki invaders by riding forth and looking at them, a really useful accomplishment in a monarch. Now it has already been seen that the aim of the Greek invasion of India was to restore Asoka's empire and that the conquests of Demetrius and his two lieutenants had only very partially been conquests by the sword; Menander, Asoka's successor even if only in a limited sense, might well claim that the honour with which legend had invested Asoka ought to be his also, and that he was a King of the Wheel of Gold.