The Mauryan Polity c11.s2.1

c11.s2.1

The above discussion leads us on to the consideration of the personal religion of the chief Mauryan monarchs, and to the consideration whether the embracing of a faith by a king did prejudicially affect the state policy and practice during that period and after. Despite all progress of modern science it is an intricate task to attempt to define the term religion. It is a curious fact that everybody speaks of religion, but nobody is prepared to furnish us with the full meaning connoted by it. The fact is that no two thinkers of any nationality have agreed on a common definition of the term. Hence the term religion like our own popular term *dharma* is used in different senses. This is clear from a reference to the New Oxford Dictionary. It is a point of dispute whether ethics, metaphysics, doctrines, etc., form part of religion. It is a general notion that the kernel of religion consists in the belief in the existence of a personal Supreme God. If this is accepted can we speak of Buddhism as a religion? If it is no religion, then, what is it? Can we compare it to Theism which is reckoned to be a doctrine? If the question how far Buddhism is a religion still looms large in the province of hot controversy, much more was it so when the Buddha sowed the seeds a few centuries before the Christian era.