India

As with earlier subscribers to the Buddha’s teachings like Ajatashatru of Magadha, Buddhist sources tend to represent Ashoka’s pre-Buddhist lifestyle as one of indulgence steeped in cruelty. Conversion then became all the more remarkable in that by ‘right thinking’ even a monster of wickedness could be transformed into a model of compassion. The formula, if such it was, precluded any admission of Ashoka’s early fascination with Buddhism and may explain the ruthless conduct attributed to him when Bindusara died. Not only is he said to have killed all rival claimants to the throne, notably ninety-nine of his brothers, but also to have paid a visit to hell so that he could construct on earth something similar, equipped with the very latest in instruments of exquisite torture, for all who incurred his displeasure. This ‘Hell-on-Earth’ evidently became quite a curiosity: nine hundred years later a Chinese visitor, while touring the locations associated with early Buddhism, records the site, which was then marked with a pillar.

That Ashoka was not his father’s chosen successor and that there was indeed a succession struggle is certain. It helps to account for the four-year gap between Bindusara’s death and Ashoka’s enthronement as also for the fact that only one brother of many (though surely not a hundred) receives further mention; according to one source, the name of this brother was Vitashoka and he became a Buddhist monk, a career move no doubt dictated as much by self-preservation as self-abnegation. If not a monster, Ashoka undoubtedly evinced the Kautilyan ruthlessness essential to gaining the throne and the Kautilyan cunning essential to retaining it.

Eight years after his enthronement, so in C260 BC, there occurred the only campaign that can certainly be attributed to the Mauryas, one which was nevertheless the outstanding event of the reign and the turning point in the life of the emperor. Ashoka conquered, or reconquered, Kalinga (roughly Orissa). The conquest is recorded in the most important of his Edicts, the thirteenth of the fourteen Major Rock Edicts (as opposed to the eight Minor Rock Edicts and Inscriptions, and the seven Major Pillar Edicts). And though the Edict says nothing of the military arrangements, it tells in detail of the human suffering involved – 100,000 slain, ‘many times that number perished’ (presumably afterwards from wounds and famine) and 150,000 deported. More famously, it also records the emperor’s reaction.

On conquering Kalinga the Beloved of the Gods felt remorse, for, when an independent country is conquered, the slaughter, death and deportation of the people is extremely grievous to the Beloved of the Gods and weighs heavily on his mind … Even those who are fortunate to have escaped, and whose love is undiminished, suffer from the misfortunes of their friends, acquaintances, colleagues and relatives … Today if a hundredth or a thousandth part of those people who were killed or died or were deported when Kalinga was annexed were to suffer similarly, it would weigh heavily on the mind of the Beloved of the Gods …

This inscription of dhamma has been engraved so that any sons or great-grandsons that I may have should not think of gaining new conquests, and in whatever victories they may gain should be satisfied with patience and light punishment. They should only consider conquest by dhamma to be a true conquest, and delight in dhamma should be their whole delight, for this is of value in both this world and the next.10

‘Herein lies the greatness of Ashoka,’ writes R.K. Mookerji. ‘Even as a mere pious sentiment this is hard to beat; at least no victorious monarch in the history of the world is known to have ever given expression to anything like it.’11 In just such a ‘History of the World’ H.G. Wells made the same point: ‘He would have no more of it [the cruelty and horror of war]. He adopted the peaceful doctrines of Buddhism and declared that henceforth his conquests would be conquests of religion … Such was Ashoka, greatest of kings.’12

Renouncing violence, abjuring war, and advocating the elusive but admirable concept of dhamma, Ashoka turned statecraft on its head. Not the least of those confounded was Kautilya, whose Arthasastra makes the conquest of neighbouring territories one of the sacred duties of a king. It lists several kinds of war, goes into immense logistical detail on armies and battle plans, and includes four handy hints on conquering the world. To a society accustomed to such cynical sentiments, Ashoka’s change of heart must indeed have appeared revolutionary.

Whether it was quite as benign as it seems may, though, be questioned. One wonders why, for instance, if the emperor was so overcome with remorse, he did not arrange for the repatriation of all those deportees? Or why the Edict in question is pointedly omitted from the only rock inscriptions in Kalinga itself, inscriptions which otherwise conform with those in the rest of the country. In its stead are two separate Edicts ordering imperial representatives to conciliate the natives with lenient policies and exceptional diligence so that such wayward people may come to think of Ashoka as their father. Policy as much as conscience dictated this approach. Whatever lessons he chose to draw, in reality Ashoka’s treatment of the subjugated Kalingans was exactly as prescribed by the Arthasastra: ‘having acquired new territory the conqueror shall substitute his virtues for the enemy’s vices and where the enemy was good, he shall be twice as good. He shall follow policies that are pleasing and beneficial by acting according to his dharma and by granting favours and exemptions, giving gifts and bestowing honours.’13

One wonders, too, about those astronomical casualty figures. Megasthenes describes the Mauryan army as a permanent and professional body, recruited, trained and maintained at state expense, and which scarcely impinged on the agricultural masses. ‘It therefore not unfrequently happens that at the same time, and in the same part of the country, men may be seen drawn up in array of battle, and fighting at the risk of their lives, while other men close at hand are ploughing and digging in perfect security.’14 But if this was the case, how were so many non-combatants affected by the Kalingan war? Megasthenes actually gives a figure for the Kalingan army. In Chandragupta’s time it was sixty thousand strong. The Mauryan forces were obviously far more numerous but, unless they suffered a disproportionate number of casualties, it is hard to explain how the total of those slain in battle can have come to anything like 100,000.

There was nothing unusual, of course, about conflating enemy losses. Perhaps Ashoka exaggerated so as to make his revulsion more plausible. But equally he may, like most victors, have done so principally to magnify his victory and so discourage others from defying his authority. Contrary to popular opinion, he never specifically abjures warfare, nor is there any mention of his disbanding units of the Mauryan army. This is not to say that his remorse was insincere. The Kalinga war had indeed troubled his conscience, and since, according to the Arthasastra, ‘the king encapsulates the constituents of the state,’ his unease seemed to reflect the wider ills of society as a whole. The cure, though, was not the balm of a disastrous pacifism but the bracing tonic of what he called dhamma.

AS LONG AS SUN AND MOON ENDURE

Few rulers have summed up their life’s work in a single word, but that was obviously how Ashoka wanted it. Not for conquests, prosperity or majesty did he wish to be remembered, only for dhamma. To say the word features prominently in his Edicts is an understatement. Nearly all mention it, some many times, and there are several attempts at defining it:

Thus speaks the Beloved of the Gods, the king Piyadassi: There is no gift comparable to the gift of dhamma, the praise of dhamma, the sharing of dhamma, fellowship in dhamma. And this is: good behaviour towards slaves and servants, obedience to mother and father, generosity towards friends, acquaintances and relatives, and towards sramanas and brahmans, and abstention from killing living beings. Father, son, brother, master, friend, acquaintance, relative, and neighbour should say, ‘this is good, this we should do.’ By doing so, there is gain in this world, and in the next there is infinite merit, through the gift of dhamma. [Eleventh Major Rock Edict]15

Elsewhere dhamma is equated with ‘mercy, charity, truthfulness and purity’. In English it is variously rendered as ‘piety’, ‘duty’, ‘good conduct’ or ‘decency’. Ashoka clearly thought it anything but anodyne, and practised it, preached it, and legislated for it with missionary zeal. It was a panacea not just for India but for the world – this one and the next. The glad tidings were to be carried beyond his frontiers, even to his fellow rulers in the west. The mention of some of their names – including an Egyptian Ptolemy and an Alexander (of Epirus) – provides vital chronological corroboration.

At home, something like a parallel administration was set up to promote and monitor dhamma’s dissemination. The Edicts embodying it were promulgated, proclaimed, and then encapsulated for all time by that laborious process of gouging them into the very bedrock of India. ‘I have done this,’ Ashoka announced when, after twenty-seven years on the throne, he issued his last Edict, ‘so that among my sons and great grandsons, and as long as the sun and moon shall endure, men may follow dhamma’ [Seventh Pillar Edict].16

It is the tone as much as the content which sends a shiver down awe-struck spines. Ashoka is not just India’s first defined historical personality but, rarer still for such a remote age, he is an intelligible personality. Quite probably the Beloved of the Gods did indeed speak just thus. The language is personal and intimate, not stilted or formalised as is more usual with official directives, and neither condensed for the purposes of inscription nor artfully organised for easy memorising. Occasionally repetitive, it slips from third person to first and from direct speech to indirect, just as one might expect of something dictated and recorded verbatim.

Almost certainly the Edicts first circulated as palm-leaf texts and were then engraved. Literacy not being a widespread skill in the third century BC, they were meant to be read out aloud to the people. At Shahbazgarhi near Peshawar on the edge of the badlands of the north-west frontier, and at Mansehra in the Himalayan foothills north of Taxila, they were written in Kharosthi, the local script derived from Aramaic in Achaemenid times. Further west beyond the Khyber Pass and at Kandahar in the deserts of southern Afghanistan a shortened Edict is in Aramaic with a translation into Greek; had it been discovered earlier, it could, like a Rosetta Stone, have made Prinsep’s task redundant. Although the many inscriptions found deep in the Deccan betray no knowledge of Tamil, elsewhere the adoption of local scripts and languages shows Ashoka appealing directly not only to his own people but to other peoples beyond his frontiers, and to other generations beyond his times. It is this above all, the directness of his directives, which, transcending the millennia, gives them even now such awesome immediacy.

But if the tone is still arresting, one can hardly say the same for the contents. Why, one wonders, lavish so much love, labour and authority on a set of fairly obvious humanitarian injunctions? Assuming they had no political relevance, many historians have portrayed Ashoka more as a religious reformer, another Buddha or Christ, than as an empire-builder. In religious terms his clear preference, as shown in a number of minor inscriptions, was for the Buddhist community; given ‘the rank growth of legend which has clustered round the name of Ashoka’ in Buddhist tradition, dhamma has often actually been equated with Buddhism. This link appears to be borne out by dhamma’s emphasis on non-violence, on preserving life in all its forms, and on ‘right conduct’ towards one’s fellow human beings. The Third Buddhist Council is supposed to have met under Ashoka’s patronage at Pataliputra. At least one of his dhamma agents, his son Mahinda, was more missionary than emissary. And Ashoka, instead of combining tours of his kingdom with the traditional pastime of a royal hunt, insists that his peregrinations were enlivened only by pilgrimage. Just such a tour, embracing the Buddha’s birthplace and the site of his parinirvana, is commemorated in a series of pillars erected in situ and dated to the twentieth year of his reign, so 248 BC.

However, the tradition that Ashoka actually became a Buddhist monk is now discredited. The inscriptions never mention the Buddha and show no awareness of his ‘Noble Eightfold Path’ or any other Buddhist schema. Even the idea of ‘conversion’ is suspect, since codes like those of the Buddhists and Jains were not seen as exclusive. Religion as creed, doctrine as dogma, and faith as truth are equations with little validity in pre-Islamic India. Most subscribed to the inexorable cycle of rebirth and to the notion that there were various ways of effecting eventual escape from it. The propitiation of a particular deity could help, but was more commonly a means of warding off disease and pestilence. Even brahmanical orthodoxy demanded no profession of faith, merely an acceptance of brahman authority and a high degree of caste conformity. There was indeed competition, especially amongst the heterodox sects, for adherents and for patronage. There was also ferocious debate which, on at least one occasion, required Ashoka’s intervention. But conversion, in the sense of renouncing one set of doctrines for another, was meaningless.

Instead Megasthenes divided India’s ‘philosophers’ not into like-minded sects but into ‘Bramanes and Sarmanes’, a distinction also made by Ashoka when referring, as above, to ‘Sramanas and brahmans’, or elsewhere to ‘Sramanas and householders’. ‘Sramanas’ denoted ‘renunciates’ and included all those who followed the mendicant and monastic habits of the heterodox sects as well as itinerant devotees of traditional deities. In other words, the crucial distinction was not between different belief systems but between different lifestyles. The individual was defined purely by his relationship to the rest of society. Not doctrine but conduct was what mattered.

Just so for Ashoka. He attempted no philosophical justification of dhamma, nor was he much given to rationalising it. It was not a belief system, not a developed ideology, just a set of behavioural exhortations. But because behaviour, conduct, was of such defining importance, any attempt to alter it was indeed revolutionary. Ashoka therefore needed a good reason for introducing his dhamma; and it should perhaps be sought in the need to promote a more united and uniform society.

Unprecedented solutions were required for an empire of unprecedented extent. In addition to the vast area roughly defined by the Rock Inscriptions (extending from Orissa to Mysore, Bombay, Junagadh, Kandahar, Peshawar and Dehra Dun), it seems fairly certain that the Kashmir valley was also included, and probably that of Nepal. The terrain varied from jungle to mountain, desert and flood-plain, and the population from nomadic hunter-gatherers to slash-and-burn tribesmen, pastoral herdsmen, fishing communities, arable and dairy farmers, craft villages, urbanised guilds, maritime and overland traders, and the highly sophisticated hierarchical societies of the major cities. Pataliputra itself, according to Megasthenes, lay within a walled and heavily fortified parallelogram of roughly fifteen kilometres by two and a half; its palace rivalled that of the Achaemenids, and even in decay made such an impression on a Chinese traveller that he thought it the work of spirits.

To preserve this empire intact, the Mauryan administration, if one may judge from what Megasthenes says and the Arthasastra expands, was one of the most elaborate on record. Government was construed as being largely about collecting taxes and administering justice. In each of these spheres the emperor and his mainly advisory council of ministers headed a hierarchy of officials which reached down through divisional and district officers to the toll-collector, the market overseer and the clerk who recorded the measurement and assessment of fields. The entire apparatus was subject to regular checks by a staff of inspectors who reported direct to the emperor, while a more sinister system of undercover informants provided a further check. All were appointed, directly or indirectly, by the emperor and had instant access to him.

This system was replicated by the four provincial administrations based at Suvarnagiri (near Kurnool in what is now Andhra Pradesh), Ujjain (Avanti/Malwa), Taxila (Panjab) and Tosali (thought to have been near Bhubaneshwar in Orissa). Each was headed by a governor, usually a son or brother of the emperor, although how much autonomy these local administrations enjoyed is questionable. Megasthenes paints a picture of a highly centralised, indeed personalised, administration, but he may have been generalising from conditions in Magadha itself. Centralisation was certainly the intention. The Greek ambassador’s enthusiasm for India’s roads is more than matched by Ashoka’s insistence in one of his Edicts that they be lined with shade trees, clearly marked with milestones, and provided with frequent wells, orchards and rest-houses. Communications were vital for trade; like instant access to the emperor, they were also essential to an effective despotism.

Another declared priority was standardisation. An Ashokan directive on ‘uniformity in judicial procedure and punishment’ is echoed in the Arthasastra, where taxes, duties and pay scales are all represented as standard. More generally, the whole structure of the administration and the use of standard proclamations and inscriptions were intended to knit the empire together. Caste, whether as the four-tier varna or the profession-based jati, scarcely receives a mention in the Edicts, but sectarian differences were much on the imperial mind. ‘The Beloved of the Gods,’ according to the twelfth Major Rock Edict, ‘honours all sects and both ascetics and laymen with gifts and various forms of recognition.’ But these benefits, Ashoka says, are unimportant compared to ‘the advancement of the essential doctrine of all sects’. The context here is that of a plea for toleration between the sects. No one is to disparage someone else’s teachings – or only mildly and on certain occasions. Concord is the ideal, and this is best realised by developing a recognition of a doctrinal essence that is common to all.

Although not specifically equated with dhamma, this supposed doctrinal essence seems to be the genesis of Ashoka’s big idea. The word ‘dhamma’ is a Prakrit spelling of the more familiar ‘dharma’, a concept difficult to translate but imbued with positive and idealised connotations in both orthodox Vedic literature and in the heterodox doctrines of Buddhists, Jains and Ajivikas. Invoking a natural order within which all manner of creation had its place and its role, it was something to which no one, be he brahman or Buddhist, emperor or slave, could reasonably take exception.

Dharma did, nevertheless, have different meanings for different sects, and Ashoka’s dhamma seems therefore to have sought common ground, borrowing from one what was least objectionable to the others. The emphasis on a respect for life in all its forms and on providing medical facilities for animals as well as men was clearly derived from Jain teachings. It appears that all live sacrifices were forbidden, and even the killing of animals for food was to be discouraged. The emperor was setting an example, in that his kitchen now required only two peacocks and the occasional deer, and ‘even these three animals will not be killed in future’. Such injunctions have often been taken to imply a ban on sacrificial extravaganzas and so a provocative swipe at those who derived their prestige and income from conducting them, namely brahmans. But, given a list elsewhere of the prohibited species, it seems that this rule may have applied only to wild creatures, not farm animals. Goats, sheep and cattle, the species most obviously in demand for both ritual and culinary purposes, are protected only when nursing their young. They must otherwise, therefore, have been exempt. Similarly, though adamant that ‘it is good not to kill human beings’, Ashoka seems to have retained capital punishment just as he retained the option of warfare. Dhamma was carefully formulated so that essential interests should not be prejudiced while sectarian concerns were being accommodated.

As well as conciliating the Jains, we know from an inscription in a cave in Orissa that Ashoka continued his father’s policy of patronising the Ajivikas. As for his Buddhist sympathies, they have already been mentioned. They found ample expression in dhamma, especially in injunctions about right conduct towards relatives, friends and colleagues. He makes, though, a significant addition by adding to the list of such beneficiaries the brahmans. Ashoka had no intention of slighting orthodox society or its deities. ‘The Beloved of the Gods’ would keep in with the gods, whatever his personal sympathy for the Buddhist sangha (monastic community).

It would appear that Ashoka aimed at creating an attitude of mind among his subjects in which social behaviour had the highest relevance. In the context of conditions during the Mauryan period, this ideology may have been viewed as a focus of loyalty and a point of convergence for the existing diversities of people and activities.17

‘Yet,’ continues Romila Thapar, ‘the ideology of dhamma died with the death of the emperor [in 231 BC].’ Others have conjectured that dhamma may even have been the undoing of the empire; perhaps it invited defiance, perhaps it provoked defiance. During his last ten years on the throne Ashoka had no further Edicts inscribed, and his empire may already have been falling apart. Mauryas would continue to rule from Pataliputra for another fifty years but their writ seldom ran beyond Magadha. The provinces, centred on Ujjain, Taxila, Suvarnagiri and Tosali, rapidly broke away as Ashoka’s successors proved unworthy of their inheritance and incapable of his vision. If dhamma was supposed to hold the empire together, it was an unmitigated failure.

Yet a policy that failed became an intimation that endured. The Ashokan legacy of an empire which stretched from sea to sea and from the mountains to the peninsula was promptly mislaid and would remain so for a couple of millennia. Likewise Ashoka’s historicity. But tradition cherished his memory; Indian historians insist that the ideal of a pan-Indian empire was never forgotten; and nor, more certainly, was the spirit of humanity embodied in his Edicts. The innovation which he pioneered of appealing across the barriers of sect, caste and kin to the community of India would be revived by a host of other reformers, not least Guru Nanak of the Sikhs and eventually Mahatma Gandhi.

6 An Age of Paradox C200 BC–C300 AD

EBB OF EMPIRE, FLOW OF IDEAS

BETWEEN THE DEATH of Ashoka in 231 BC and the advent of Gupta power in 320 AD, India’s ancient history plummets again to a murky obscurity. ‘Certainties are not many,’ bemoans a writer on the period.1 Prior to the Mauryas our vision is blurred by the ambiguity of mainly literary sources whose purpose is suspect and whose dates are vague. After the Mauryas the source materials are more varied: coins furnish the names of a host of otherwise forgotten kings; other archaeological finds, plus inscriptions, provide additional information about guilds and religious establishments; and texts – Indian, Graeco-Roman and Chinese – hint at a wider historical context and testify to the importance of trade. Yet the sum total of these sources remains inadequate and, in respect of the successor states of the Mauryan empire, certainties are indeed ‘not many’. How far the writ of these states ran, whence came their rulers and when they reigned, even the order in which their dynasties succeeded one another, are matters of dispute. The Puranas continue to prove tantalisingly unreliable; and the greater variety of sources often serves only to introduce contradictions. A long period of political confusion is deduced and, pre-modern history necessarily being a reflection of such sources, this confusion is taken to indicate instability, fragmentation and turbulence. The five hundred years between the Mauryas and the Guptas become, in fact, ‘India’s Dark Age’.2