ASHOKA’S EDICTS

’BEHAVE YOURSELVES OR ELSE’ AND OTHER MISSIVES

Many things are revealed by Ashoka’s edicts as regards their inscriber and are all intrinsically important to the reconstruction of history but the non-history-enthusiast would baulk at the idea of dissecting and discussing each and every one of them. And so, in order to keep the general readers’ eyes riveted on this page, we will take up only the most interesting ones. However, for those who like comprehensive lists and who might, therefore, fear that this approach is sketchy, there are several excellent works (provided in the references), that they could consult, which will give them a detailed analysis of Ashoka’s words.

Incidentally, where edicts are concerned, the omniscient Kautilya had already provided a template. He holds forth on the ideal one, which, quite apart from the framing of content, should, ideally, contain ‘sweetness’ by using ‘pleasant’ words, ‘dignity’ by ‘avoiding vulgarisms’ and ‘lucidity’ by using well-known words. Defects to be avoided, at all costs, include ‘absence of charm’ through poor surfaces or handwriting, contradiction and confusion. However, Ashoka, with his thoroughly original approach to things, would not have bothered much with these dictates. Choosing lovely words was not particularly at the top of his mind while he framed the content of his edicts and he was inclined to be repetitive, at points. Nevertheless, his message came through loud and clear—and that, in the end, was what really mattered.

In Upinder Singh’s view, Ashoka, while powering a new attempt at imperial communication, was not really trying to speak directly to his people. The audience for his edicts was three-pronged: the direct audience or the senior administrative officials, the indirect audience or the emperor’s subjects who would receive his message through various intermediaries, and the future audience or posterity. The last one is an interesting thought. Immortality is, presumably, a compelling human desire and there is no reason to believe that Ashoka was immune to it. However, seeking to achieve it in the manner and scale in which he did is evidence, indeed, of his genius, one totally unprecedented for the times.

The majority of Ashoka’s inscriptions are in the Prakrit language and the Brahmi script. There is a special sort of thrill that you experience if you happen to be a student of history and are taught the Brahmi script, and can actually decipher his epigraphs for yourself. The squiggles cease, all of a sudden, to be mystifying and arbitrary, and it feels very much as if you have cracked an ancient and difficult code to an impenetrable mystery. Which, of course, is exactly what this is in relation to the past! The adroit Ashoka does vary the script, though, when it makes sense to do so given the enormous range of his empire and the varied scripts and languages in use. Thus, for instance, the epigraphs at Mansera in the Hazara district and Shahbazgarhi in the Mardan district of Pakistan are in Prakrit but in the Kharoshti script. Greek and Aramaic are employed in a few other inscriptions, either separately or together.

A bilingual record, in this regard, was found at Shar-i-Kuna near Kandahar in southeast Afghanistan, while two Aramaic ones were discovered at Laghman in east Afghanistan and one at Taxila. Furthermore, a Prakrit-Aramaic inscription was also found at Kandahar. So not only does Ashoka embark on this pioneering path but he shows himself capable of employing linguistic innovation as well whether or not he is conversant with the language or script in a particular region. He varies the content and material, too. Of the rock and pillar edicts, the two main categories of his staggering body of evidence, there are fourteen of the former and six (seven, in one case) of the latter with minor variations in the sets of inscriptions that they bear. Additionally, there are minor rock edicts, minor pillar edicts and cave inscriptions—a chronological sequence from earliest to later.

Spare a thought for the Ashokan scholar who must needs be conversant with where and on what these were inscribed, and when and what they said, and how variations of the same content are visible across the records—for Ashoka alternatively confesses, preens, laments or orders through these, his mouthpieces. Finally, there are variations in locales as well. We cannot pinpoint the exact number of inscriptions that Ashoka inscribed in all—the Chinese pilgrims, Faxian and Xuanzang, for instance, refer to pillars at places where they do not exist today.

However, what we do know is that the major rock edicts are usually located along the borders of his vast empire. The major pillar edicts are overwhelmingly located in north India, while the minor rock edicts are distributed all over, notably in the Andhra-Karnataka area. Ashoka’s epigraphs were largely placed along ancient trade and pilgrimage routes—aiding maximum visibility and consequent dissemination. Some of them were also located at important Buddhist monastic sites, such as at Sanchi, and some in the south notably abutted a gold-mining area.

But it is Minor Rock Edict 1 (at Rupnath) that spells out the entire process of this logistical exercise. Issued slightly over a couple of years after Ashoka’s spiritual transformation, the emperor confesses to not having been particularly zealous, in this regard, in the initial stages until he drew closer to the sangha, and realised that rich and poor alike—and even those beyond the empire’s borders—could attain heaven if so desired with precisely the same sort of zeal. Now what this seemingly intangible zeal entails has been covered, in lesser or greater detail, by several epigraphs—and we will come to it in due course.

Suffice it to note here that his increasing preoccupation with explaining and propagating dhamma seems to have been a fact from when he first started issuing inscriptions on this issue twelve years into his ascension (as noted in Pillar Edict 6, for instance) until the very end of his reign. In this particular epigraph, though, Ashoka confines himself to the manner in which he is sharing his Eureka moment with his people. Addressing his officers, he says: ‘And you must cause this matter to be engraved on stone whenever an opportunity presents itself. And, wherever there are stone pillars here in my dominions, this should be caused to be engraved on those stone pillars.’

Nothing Ashoka does is ever ordinary or derivative; therefore, the brilliant thought that has gone into constructing his plan is also very evident in this epigraph, although, for the moment, it remains understated. And since he also does not do anything by halves, the logistics thereof are thorough and impeccably devised. Continuing to address his officers, he says: ‘And, according to the letter of this proclamation, you must despatch an officer to go everywhere, as far as your district extends.’ The fact that he has not been lolling about on his royal couch and idly concocting grandiose schemes is also smartly slipped in by him: ‘This proclamation,’ he declares, ‘is issued by me when on tour. Two hundred and fifty-six nights have been spent on tour.’

The impression he successfully conveys thereby is of a leader who is never off duty, who cares for the spiritual salvation of all the people within his realm—and even the ones beyond—even while he is tirelessly transacting state business all over. And so, that he is exerting himself physically and mentally on everyone’s behalf is crystal clear. Ashoka, thus, reels the people in with his words, binding them even more firmly to him and the Mauryan empire at large—an original, somewhat quixotic but thoroughly praiseworthy interpretation of rulership.

Assuming, though, that all Ashoka’s subjects were literate and could wander around reading his missives with ease is a bit like putting the cart before the horse. Few people would have known how to read and write at the time, and the astute emperor was well-aware of this simple yet crucial fact. So the instructions to his emissaries were twofold: find suitable, preferably striking, surfaces to inscribe his messages on but also make arrangements for the oral dissemination of the latter. The messages themselves were carefully composed so as to give the overall impression of Ashoka chatting with his people rather than commanding them in a distant manner—inasmuch as a grand royal figure could be expected to natter away!—which is why many of the edicts begin with the phrase, ‘Thus speaks Devanampiya Piyadasi’ (the Sanskrit Devanampriya Priyadarshi, or Beloved of the Gods whose gaze is affectionate), the sobriquet that he adopted for the express purpose of communicating with his subjects.

Incidentally, Kautilya, in his infinite wisdom, had already recommended the use of a qualified writer/lekhaka in administrative processes who would listen to the king’s orders and transcribe them. The post required a decent handwriting, an ability to compose on demand and the eye to decipher all sorts of writing—and, presumably, the incumbent, particularly in Ashoka’s time, must have had to work all hours to meet his royal employer’s insatiable needs!

The procedure of oral communication itself was not as simple as it sounded. Separate rock edicts indicate that they were read out to the people on certain auspicious days, such as the full moon days of specific months and so on. This was, in all probability, a momentous occasion every time it was carried out. Imagine, if you can, a scenario where an entire community of people in a village or a hamlet or a town gather around a mysteriously-inscribed part of their landscape at a pre-assigned time of the day in answer to a summons by their ruler’s representative, who, then, proceeds to read out the missive in sonorous tones to an audience that is agog with excitement and anticipation.

Subsequently, the air would be thick with questions and explanations and, of course, the thrill of having had a conversation, so to speak, with the emperor himself. Crowds would continue to gather around the carved surface for days afterwards and curious fingers would trace the letters while the educated ones would obligingly decipher them—all permeated, quite possibly, by a hushed air of reverence. There is something quite cosy and empowering in being included in your leader’s plans and no one who came across these direct messages from the emperor would have remained unaffected by them. Their precise reactions, though, find no documentation.

Therefore, as is fairly obvious, the dhamma mahamatas (dharma mahamatras), the elite group of people that Ashoka created for this express purpose, had to be several things at once—keen purveyors of the terrain who could spot perfect, durable material to be inscribed upon; storytellers of sorts who could gather crowds around them and convey Ashoka’s ideas in an engaging yet pithy manner; and indefatigable and gregarious travellers who were willing to accost all sorts of people within the realm and spread the gist of the emperor’s new philosophy to them. In fact, Rock Edict 5 commands them to spread dhamma not just within the Mauryan kingdom but also among the border people, such as the Kambojas and Gandharas. The latter might not have been the most welcoming kind of audience but the dharma mahamatras, by definition, were nothing if not intrepid.

In these days of fervent and frantic social media communication where messages are consumed almost as soon as they are posted and then promptly become redundant, it is easy to overlook the magnitude of Ashoka’s endeavour. He was attempting—and, eventually, perfecting—a form of mass communication in the absence of the tools that we take for granted today. No technology, no replication aids, not even, perhaps, a constant supply of durable material on which he could scribble his notes at all times—and yet Ashoka pulled off this magnificent feat so successfully. Also, as Nayanjot Lahiri so pertinently points out, each of his messages to his varied administrators all over the empire was in a more or less identical form since he wanted to convey the same image of himself to all his subjects. There was to be only one voice echoing across the Mauryan realm.

This was how the machinery swung into action: ideas for the content of the messages would have struck Ashoka at different points of time, whereupon he would have had them composed by his scribes and sent to princes governing various administrative centres, who, in turn, would have sent them on to the officials under them to disseminate further within their provinces. And we happen to know this through an inscribing mistake or ‘ancient error’, as Lahiri aptly dubs it, which, as it turns out was a fortuitous one, enabling the demystification of Ashoka’s intricate logistics.

Three versions of an edict found near each other in the Chitradurga district of Karnataka (at Brahmagiri, Siddapura and Jatinga-Rameshwara) contain greetings and instructions from the provincial head, all of which have been faithfully transferred onto stone. Each of them notes that the prince or aryaputra, probably one of Ashoka’s sons, and the officials or mahamatras from Suvarnagiri, the southern provincial capital, conveyed their wishes for the good health of the mahamatras at Isila—and this is followed by the pertinent content, which resembles that of Ashoka’s other missives. Clearly, therefore, the mahamatras at Isila had the edict inscribed in exactly the same form as they received it, following it to the letter, as it were, and mistakenly replicating the cheerful address at the beginning.

Lest you form the impression that some of these provincial minions and engravers were not the sharpest minds, let us just note in their defence that they have more or less vanished from the pages of history—and this is completely ironic given that they are the ones who actually gave Ashoka his ‘voice’. It is not enough that Ashoka had these epiphanies; someone—or many someones—had to get them across to the hoi polloi, after all. And the fact that the messages have stood the test of time in every which way shows that they did a competent, even brilliant job of inscribing them. Yet, they hover, like most other ostensibly ‘peripheral’ characters, in the shadows of history and it is not just a matter of digging around for them and finding evidence. They have been lumped together, predictably, in one amorphous group and are talked about in much the same manner as the ‘builders’ of the pyramids of Egypt or the Taj Mahal in India—an anonymous body that we cannot or will not tell apart from each other.

There are, however, some rare and notable exceptions with regard to this faceless tale and the first of these pertains to the three supposedly ‘faulty’ messages, mentioned above. A person called Chapada, who might be the scribe who prepared the transcript or the engraver (the former is more likely given that several engravers might have worked on the engravings), signed his name on all three texts. Furthermore, he used the Kharoshti script, written from right to left, and popular in the Gandhara area and north-west India, for this purpose. This could well have been Chapada’s private swagger, an indulgence he allowed himself to demonstrate his familiarity with varied scripts. Alternatively, he could have been indicating his connection with the areas near Afghanistan. Either way, his presence is literally set in stone, the signature chiselled into the rock along with Ashoka’s message. And so, he goes down in history as the only writer-clerk working in the Mauryan administration whom we know by name.

Another scribe clamoured to be known, in a manner of speaking, by ensuring that he deviated considerably from the other styles employed in most Ashokan engravings. The engraver of the Erragudi edict in Andhra Pradesh, this gentleman tackled his task in a rather eccentric and whimsical manner. He starts off with a bi-directional or boustrophedonic segment, the somewhat pompous word that describes a form of writing related to ancient Greece wherein the lines proceed from right to left and left to right instead of following a single direction. Perhaps the intention, yet again, was to show a general dexterity with scripts so that fellow-engravers could gnash their teeth in envy.

But then, he suddenly does the equivalent of throwing up his hands, abandons this style altogether, and then squeezes the rest of the text into the available space so that it can hardly be read at all, probably having caused his interpreters to gnash their teeth in anger instead. One can picture them peering at the words in frustration and attempting to make sense of them to their audience who probably regarded the engraving as a marvellous piece of art rather than a somewhat incomprehensible and garbled epistle.

And let us not forget the stellar contribution of the local officials and administrators in one important respect quite apart from their cumbersome work of transmitting the imperial messages all over the realm. Ashoka, for all his political shrewdness and sagacity, fondly—and naively—believed that the populace would recognise him by his titles alone. Now Devanampiya and Devanampiya Piyadasi sound very grand and glorious and exactly the sort of sobriquets that an emperor should adorn himself with but Ashoka’s subjects were not exactly going around coyly referring to him as ‘the one beloved of the Gods’ or ‘the one who looks at us affectionately’. And yet, Ashoka persisted in wording his messages as emanating from this titled source (‘Thus speaks Devanampiya’…and so on in similar vein).

Here is where some of the provincial officials stepped in to dole out some much-needed pragmatism. They did not share Ashoka’s delusion and did not see the point in spreading messages that had an air of mystery clinging to them, however romantic or enticing this might have seemed. What they did was eminently simple: they added Ashoka’s name to his messages so that it would be amply clear to the people that they were being addressed directly by their ruler. So, for instance, in Maski in Karnataka and Gujjara in central India, he is mentioned by name as ‘Ashoka’ and ‘Ashoka-raja’, respectively. And years down the line, this was one of the crucial pieces of evidence that aided in the resurrection of Ashoka and this crucial part of Mauryan history.

Ashoka’s fascinating story can be approached from any of the pieces of evidence he left behind but let us start with the very heart of the tale: the Shahbazgarhi version of Rock Edict 13 because this is the one that tells us how the transformation from Ashoka the Fierce to Ashoka the Benevolent happened. It also has his changed philosophy of life in a nutshell. And it contains a rap on the knuckles, a veiled warning, as it were, to all those who do not toe his line. All this is in the third person (he varies between the first and third person in his inscriptions so he appears passionate and aloof, in turn). In this particular record, he holds forth on the thoughts and policies of Devanampriya Priyadarshi for all the world as if this were an interesting person whom he had encountered and whose tale he wants to tell.

The emperor begins with the war against Kalinga eight years into his reign and the devastation it caused (‘One hundred and fifty thousand in number were the men who were deported thence; one hundred thousand in number were those who were slain there; and many times as many those who died.’). He then talks of his horror and remorse at the destruction wrought by him (‘…now that the country of the Kalingas has been taken, Devanampriya is devoted to the pursuit of dhamma, the love of dhamma, and to instructing the people in dhamma. This is the repentance of Devanampriya on account of his conquest of the country of the Kalingas. For the slaughter, death and deportation of people that take place in the course of conquering an unconquered country is considered very painful and deplorable by Devanampriya.’). So he rubs in two facts here: first, that he has conquered Kalinga, which had previously remained outside the Mauryan pale, an important fact that requires a double iteration; and second, that he rues the bloodshed this conquest involved.

Ashoka then launches into a very perceptive and reasoned criticism of war, and the suffering it inevitably causes to all and sundry (‘…all these suffer injury or slaughter or deportation of their loved ones;…this misfortune too becomes an injury to their own selves’). This is why dhamma-vijaya or conquest by dhamma, which he has patented, is the best conquest of all. But it isn’t all sweetness and roses here—Ashoka cleverly inserts a strong warning into this deceptively mild, almost-rambling message: the recalcitrant forest people (atavi) and their chieftains had better behave themselves or face the consequences thereof (‘And they are told of the power to punish them which Devanampriya possesses in spite of his repentance, in order that they may be ashamed of their crimes and may not be killed.’). Sugary words do not hide the significant fact that Ashoka still possesses the military means to subdue and punish, and has no qualms about using them, if need be.

So who are these forest people and why was it considered necessary to warn and/or subdue them? The Arthashastra includes a range of groups within this overreaching category—savage, essentially wild tribes; trappers; wanderers; forest chiefs and their ilk; people with criminal tendencies and so on—and in its typical style, recommends that spies disguised as hermits be used to nose around the territories of these forest people. The relationship of tribes and forest dwellers with power centres has always been a problematic one through history and the additional problem is that one has to tease out references to them from sources that generally view them with distaste and suspicion. Aloka Parasher-Sen, for instance, says that no matter how powerful an ancient empire might have been, it would have encountered problems with regard to containing diverse ethnic populations.

Thus, in the Mauryan period, the imposition of new forms of political, economic and ideological dominance on the forest people, and the need to keep them beneath the Mauryan heel while also assimilating them led to a change in the earlier attitude of keeping them strictly away from imperial territory. It was a dilemma, though, because the forest people and the resources under their command (such as timber, minerals and elephants) were immensely valuable to the state and could not be dispensed with altogether. The Arthashastra offers an entirely practical solution: use them as troops, spies and assassins instead.

Ashoka’s stern warning begins to make sense in the light of this information. He is ordering them to repent for their misdemeanours and to watch their step; they are not to expect forgiveness for what cannot be forgiven. At the same time, there are other tribes like the Pitinikas and the Andhras who apparently follow dhamma, so this rap on the knuckles was clearly meant for all other recalcitrant tribes within the empire who should not mistake Ashoka’s newfound spiritualism and pacifism for military weakness. The empire and its strength are still his priority; he will do whatever it takes to keep this intact—sort of reminiscent of a schoolteacher who appears to be initially mild but could, equally, lash out with reprimands and punishments when provoked.

The emperor’s internal compulsions might have changed but his eye is on everything (much like Sauron in The Lord of the Rings!)—and Ashoka makes a point of distinguishing himself from his predecessors, in this regard. This is not the scrutiny of the unforgiving taskmaster but, rather, the watchful gaze of a leader for whom his subjects’ affairs are paramount and to which he intends to respond with alacrity. To this effect, Rock Edict 6 at Girnar claims that in earlier times, state business and the reporting of incidents did not take place round-the-clock but this is where Ashoka has effected an important change whereby he will attend to his people’s affairs at all times and anywhere.

Reporters or pativedakas were posted all over the Mauryan realm with specific instructions to report to Ashoka on the doings of his people irrespective of his own engagements at the time: ‘whether I am eating or in the harem or in the inner apartment or even in the cowpen, in the palanquin, or in the parks…And, if there is a dispute, or argumentation that arises in the council regarding any donation or proclamation I have made verbally, or in connection with an emergent matter which has been delegated to the mahamatras, it must be reported to me immediately, anywhere, at any time. Thus have I ordered.’

Not only is he quite categorical on the issue, he also outlines his highly-altruistic motives thereof with, of course, an oblique pat on his own back. ‘For,’ he declares, ‘I am never content in exerting myself and in despatching business. For I consider it my duty to promote the welfare of all men…There is no duty more important than promoting the welfare of all men. And whatever effort I make is made in order that I may discharge the debt which I owe to all living beings, that I may make them happy in this world, and that they may attain heaven in the next world.’ And then, he adds a strong dose of pragmatism to the mix: what underlies his duty to promote his people’s welfare is ‘exertion and prompt dispatch of business’, and that while he wants his successors to conform to the same noble motive, ‘this is difficult to accomplish without great effort’. He is already probably aware that his sons and grandsons might not share his passion and zeal, and this mammoth endeavour that he has undertaken will, inevitably, falter and fall by the wayside in their hands. Which it did!

Other strictures abound. In a separate rock edict (and as cited earlier), Ashoka appeals to the unconquered people on his borders not to fear him but to follow dhamma as espoused and encouraged by his dhamma-mahamatas. And then, there is Pillar Edict 5, which bans the killing of many species of animals twenty-six years into his reign (parrots, geese, bats, queen ants, terrapins, boneless fish, tortoises, porcupines, the rhinoceros, doves ‘and all quadrupeds which are neither useful nor edible’, to name a few quaint categories). How he determined this somewhat variegated list is a mystery. One can almost picture him strolling among his gardens and woods, contemplating each creature that scuttles across his path, and then leaning over the water bodies to examine their depths for more.

There are also intricate injunctions against animal castration and branding, as also hunting and fishing, on particular days. Furthermore, ‘forests must not be burnt either uselessly or in order to destroy living beings’. ‘Yes!’ you might crow. ‘Here is an ancient environmentalist par excellence, perhaps one of the earliest!’ Yet picture to yourself, if you will, the bafflement of the very same forest people who must not apparently hunt or fish—their staple—or move a finger in the forest without inviting the wrath of this mercurial ruler upon their heads. But here we have a potentially classic clash between theory and practice, one of the perennial problems of historical reconstruction: did they, in fact, stop everything and live on love and fresh air alone or was Ashoka’s ban more of a boast than anything else?

Ashoka definitely seemed to be obsessed with non-violence and viewed it as extendable to all living beings within his purview. Rock Edict 1 encapsulates his attempts to curb violence towards animals in sacrifices, festivals and, more pragmatically, in the royal kitchens. No more gory hunting-and-feasting scenarios where the cooks laboured to convert fresh kills into palatable fare. All pleasure tours (largely for hunting) were replaced by dhamma tours, which were every bit as worthy as they sounded. Rock Edict 2 takes Ashoka’s concern for animals a step further with a welfare package for them: the provision of medical treatment, the planting of herbs and trees, the digging of wells. However, it is Pillar Edict 5, issued in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, that clearly spells out his policy towards them (in a nutshell, ‘the living must not live on the living’), and which, therefore, is remarkable and pathbreaking in itself.

Among a series of commands in this epigraph is the injunction against killing female goats, ewes, pregnant sows and animals less than six months old; animals that were earlier hunted in elephant forests; and the impaling and killing of fish in fishermen’s preserves on certain days, as mentioned earlier. Husk containing living animals could not be burnt and living beings, in general, were not to be fed with other living beings. For those of you envisioning a halcyon Mauryan world where animals flitted and flew and scampered and swam without a care in the world, here is a bit of a reality check—Ashoka and his officers could not possibly have run up and down the realm ensuring this! What would have happened, in all probability, is a lessening of violence towards them but not the elimination of it altogether. A laudable step, nevertheless, and one that animal rights groups are still struggling to enforce, so you can appreciate the farsightedness of Ashoka’s measures.

So is non-violence the sole constituent of Ashoka’s dhamma? It was definitely key to it but dhamma itself, as understood and preached by the emperor, also embraced general themes of good conduct and social responsibilities. It, therefore, encompasses courtesy to those who serve you; respect towards those older than you (particularly your parents); restraint in your dealings with living beings (here is where the non-violence comes in); and generosity towards friends, relatives, shramanas (Buddhist monks)18 and brahmanas. It is also vastly superior, claims Rock Edict 9, to redundant rituals performed during sickness or marriage or travel, for instance—and here Ashoka shakes his head in sorrowful displeasure at women, who, it seems, are largely guilty of this.

And here is one of the critical aspects of Ashoka’s dhamma as he saw it: the practice and accordance of mutual respect between different sects and religious communities. In our current context when religious groups seem to have nothing better to do than hurl invectives at each other and routinely vitiate the atmosphere, this comes as a breath of fresh air. Given the power Ashoka wielded and the vast resources at his command, he could have forced Buddhism down the throats of everyone in his massive realm if he had so desired—and that would have meant almost all of the country—but he showed restraint at the height of his strength by taking a step back and considering the motley crew of sects under him. So dhamma, clearly, did not mean the promotion of a particular sect to the detriment of others. Rock Edict 12, in fact, notes that Ashoka did not want his subjects to go around shrilly praising their own religions and lambasting others. As Rock Edict 7 succinctly puts it: ‘…all religions should reside everywhere’.

But this was not even ‘antagonistic tolerance’—that elegant, almost-fashionable phrase composed to explain situations when the adherents of two or more religions glower at each other while they go about their lives without actually going so far as to murder each other due to practical considerations, despite occasional inner urges to do so. Lest you consider this a modern construct, let us hasten to add that this was something that had been practiced more or less all over the world in varied religious contexts and time periods and, most probably, since the beginning of civilisation. After all, you can only get so far by chopping off the heads of your opponents and shouting yourself hoarse about the merits of your own form of worship. Pragmatism usually rules in any context and so, the realisation that more was to be gained by just getting along, whatever annoyances this entailed, was quick. You might build huge religious structures to dwarf the others and you might play your religious songs at the highest pitch to drown out contending noises but you still need your neighbour and their trade if your economy is to function with a modicum of convenience. Hence, the beauty of this term—and its practice.

Ashoka’s plea, though, was something more besides, a request (or command, if you chose to interpret it that way) to be proactive in that his people were to make an attempt to understand the dhamma of others, so that the different essentials, in this regard, could be promoted together. Everyone had a dhamma: his was to promote the welfare of his people, and ensure their happiness in this and other worlds, as Rock Edict 6 notes. Then, of course, there are the specifics thereof, amply illustrated by Rock Edict 2: providing medical treatment and succour, digging wells, planting beneficial herbs and so on not just for humans but for animals, too. He, thus, differentiates himself from every other preceding ruler in one stroke—none of the latter had bothered to consider the four-legged world before in their welfare measures, however enlightened they claimed to be.

So now we come to what the edicts do not mention—his parents or his worthy royal predecessors, his being part of the Mauryan line, the manner in which he got the throne and his earlier rumoured excesses—or any guilt thereof. If we get into Ashoka’s shoes, however, this is understandable. If you have run riot in your younger days and violated the law of primogeniture (by which the oldest son inherits the throne), got rid of several people on the way and then indulged in a bloody campaign of revenge, you do not necessarily want to proclaim this to the world at large, especially if you are now a responsible ruler who is seeking to unite your vast realm. Yet Ashoka’s silence on his early days becomes all the more resounding when we consider how voluble he is post-Kalinga. None of his epigraphs contain his lineage—an almost mandatory requirement in most royal records—or that of his queens. It is almost as if family and relatives do not matter to him; his new royal policy and state imperatives do. He chooses to record only what matters to him, not what traditional policy dictates. Here, too, he is a pioneer.

And how does Ashoka compare with Kautilya, the two political stalwarts par excellence? Both spoke through their strictures although the media they chose to disseminate them was, admittedly, different—epigraphic and textual, respectively. Upinder Singh speaks of the startling similarity between them despite their deceptively different approaches. For a start, both believed in what is termed benevolent paternalism, much like a kindly father holding their child’s hand and helping them navigate this world and the one beyond. Their concern for animals is, oddly enough, another issue that links them. However difficult it is to imagine Kautilya casting a benign eye on anyone, let alone four-legged creatures, it is, in fact, true and the Arthashastra provides extensive evidence on his concern for their welfare. There are regulations for protecting wildlife and on grazing, punishments for cruelty to animals, a list of a veterinarian’s responsibilities and so on.

However, while Ashoka is viewed through the ages as a remarkable king who decided to eschew war and violence at the height of his triumph, and devoted his life to propagating dhamma and non-violence among his subjects, Kautilya propagated realpolitik whereby the ends justified the means, involving a moral lapse or two along the way, and the ruthless pursuit and acquisition of power, where subterfuge and killing were par for the course. Also, for Kautilya, political integration required conquest and centralised administration whereas Ashoka’s edicts seem more akin to a flexible one, where the local was governed through adjustments and concessions. In fact, non-violence and mutual respect may have been the most practical mode to run a huge, subcontinental territory—proof that ideas of governance always grow out of the exigencies of the times.

And the enormous sprawl of the Mauryan realm would have thrown up all sorts of ruling challenges, ones that Ashoka ably combatted despite giving the impression that his priorities lay elsewhere.