Asoka, the Philosopher Emperor

Extracts from an article by Phiroz Mehta taken from volume 86 of Memoirs and Proceedings of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, 1944

In the days when Gautama Buddha, the Enlightened One, taught in India, these words were spoken by one called Job of the land of Uz:

“Oh that my words were now written! Oh that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever!”

Job xix, 23, 24

And it came to pass some fourteen generations later, that the Beloved of the Gods, one called Asoka, the son of Bindusara the son of Chandragupta, King in India, caused these words to be graven in rock:

“His Majesty King Priyadarsin in the ninth year of his reign conquered the Kalingas. One hundred and fifty thousand persons were thence carried away captive, one hundred thousand were there slain, and many times that number perished.

“Ever since the annexation. of the Kalingas, His Majesty has zealously observed the Law of Righteous Living, has been devoted to that law, and has proclaimed its precepts.

“His Majesty feels remorse on account of the conquest of the Kalingas, because, during the subjugation of a previously unconquered country, slaughter, death, and taking away captive of the people necessarily occur, whereat His Majesty feels profound sorrow and regret.

“There is, however, another reason for His Majesty’s feeling still more regret, inasmuch as in such a country dwell Brahmans and ascetics, men of different sects, and householders, who all practise obedience to elders, obedience to father and mother, obedience to teachers, proper treatment of friends, acquaintances, comrades, relatives, slaves and servants, and who are steadfast to their faith. To all such there befalls violence or slaughter or separation from loved ones.

“Again, even though there are persons who remain physically unhurt, yet violence is inflicted on them through their affections, for ruin falls on their friends, acquaintances, comrades and relatives.

“All this widespread misery, suffered equally by all men, is felt most deeply by His Majesty. For there is no country where Brahmans and ascetics do not exist, except among the Yonas. There is no part of a country where there are people without faith in one or other of the sects.

“The suffering of a hundredth or even a thousandth part of the persons who were slain, led into captivity, or killed in Kalinga would now be a matter of deep regret to His Majesty.

“Although a man should do him an injury, His Majesty holds that it should be forgiven to the extent that it can be patiently borne. Even upon the forest tribes in his dominions, His Majesty has compassion, and seeks to win them over to his way of life and thought. For inasmuch as the might of His Majesty lies in his repentance, so it is said unto these dwellers in the forest: ‘Shun evil doing, that ye may be saved from destruction’. Indeed; for all beings doth His Majesty desire security, self-control, peace of mind and happiness.

“But the supreme conquest, in His Majesty’s opinion, is the conquest of the Law of Righteous Living. And this has oft been won by His Majesty here (in his own dominion) and among all the frontier peoples even to the extent of six hundred yojanas where are the Yona king, Antiochos by name, and beyond that Antiochos, the four kings named Ptolemy, Antigonos, Magas and Alexander; and in the south the Cholas, and the Pandyas, and as far as Tamraparni. Likewise, here in the king’s dominion, and among the Yonas and Kambojas, and Nabhakas and Nabhitis, among the Pitinikas, the Andhras and the Pulindas, men everywhere follow the Law of Righteous Living as proclaimed by His Majesty. Even in those lands where there are no envoys of His Majesty, men will practise, and continue to practise the Law of Righteous Living when they hear the pious proclamation of His Majesty.

“The conquest thus won everywhere produces a feeling of happiness, the happiness of moral conquest by the devotee of the Law. Yet happiness is but a small matter; for His Majesty thinks nothing of much importance save what concerns the next state.

“And for this purpose has this pious edict been written, to wit, that sons and grandsons, as many as they may be, should not seek to make a new conquest by arms. And should such conquest be effected, may they find happiness in patience and forgiveness. And may they remember always that the supreme conquest is won by fulfilling the Law of Righteous Living, the Law which avails both for this world and the next state. And may their happiness lie in the renunciation of all aims other than the aim of Righteous Living which avails both for this world and the next state.”

So runs the Thirteenth Rock Edict.

Who was this man who caused these words to be graven in the rock, and what was the fount of his inspiration?

India in the early third millennium B.C. boasted several fair cities in the Indus valley. It is thought that the builders of this civilisation, parallel with those of Sumeria or Egypt, were Armenoid-Mediterranean peoples, who during that third millennium B.C. were flooded by an immigration from the Iranian plateau and the Pamirs. Meanwhile men elsewhere, in the Asian steppes and in Mesopotamia, had learned to use the horse, and in the second millennium B.C. the Indo-Aryan barbarians from the steppes of Turkestan poured over the Hindu Kush into the fertile prosperous Indus valley. They were warrior horsemen armed with swords, attacking in one wild onrush with loud cries. Disciplined military tactics were unknown to them. They brought their own women, and their cattle, with them, and successfully overran the pre-existing civilisation. Their great gift to India was to be their language, offering a remarkable scope for mental and cultural development.

The inhabitants of pre-Aryan India appear to have had their own social organisation and a developed religious system. Theirs was an already ancient culture, on which came the impact of the warlike Aryans of the second millennium B.C., bringing with them a religious practice based on nature gods, sky, wind, thunder, etc. The invaders, though they retained their pride of ancestry and military prowess, were overawed in a religious sense by the culture of the conquered peoples. Their own gods sank to a lower level than those of ancient India, among whom Siva is still the most important. The priests of Siva and the Indian pantheon eventually became an exclusive Brahman caste some centuries before the advent of the Buddha. They became the ritual leaders in contrast with the administrators and warriors who constituted the Kshattriya caste.

In the Punjab the lordship of the Kshattriyas was beyond dispute; much of it was grassland on which their herds could live. But in the Ganges basin east of what is now Allahabad they penetrated only in small groups, founding lordships. They tried to keep themselves from officially recognised intermixture with the people of the land and to marry with the sons and daughters of other lords like themselves.

Like the Roman priests of the Dark Ages in Western Europe, the Brahmans sought the friendship of the Kshattriyas; and, while recognising merchants and others as to some extent privileged, as Vaisyas, both despised the common people of the conquered races as Sudras. Thus we have, broadly, the fourfold division of Hindu Society. But the earlier, simple social organisation lost its elasticity and became a more rigid and increasingly complex caste system, i.e. a system in which the main object of each group of persons was to preserve in its original form or purity what was accepted as right and proper in religious worship and customs, in social behaviour and customs, in professional duties or occupations, and in the routine of physical life. Caste is derived from castus, pure; and the term ‘caste system’ was first loosely used by the Portuguese to describe the social organisation of the peoples of India.

Continued in part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6 and part 7

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