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

Continued from part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6

Says the Third Rock Edict:

“Commendable is the service of father and mother; commendable is liberality to friends, acquaintances, relatives, Brahmans and Sramanas; commendable is abstention from the slaughter of living creatures, commendable also is it not to spend or hoard too much”. And the Fourth Rock Edict: “This is the highest work, viz., preaching of the Law of Righteous Living”. And the Fifth: “The good deed is difficult of performance. He who is the first performer of a good deed achieves something difficult of performance … Sin must be trodden down.”

Here is the Tenth Rock Edict:

“His Gracious Majesty the King does not regard glory or fame as bringing much gain, except that whatever fame or glory he desires it would be only for this, that the people might in the present and in the future practise obedience to the Law and conform to the observances of the Law. And what little His Majesty exerts himself is in order that all may be free from bondage. And this is bondage, viz., sin. This is indeed difficult of achievement by the lowly or high in rank, except by strenuous preliminary effort, renouncing all. But among these two, it is the more difficult of achievement by the person of superior rank.”

The whole of the Twelfth Edict, too long to quote here, preaches complete religious toleration. And it must be remembered that for twenty-five centuries Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Jainism, with their various sects, and a multitude of philosophies, flourished side by side.

Of the Seven Pillar Edicts here is an extract from the First:

“Both this world and the next are difficult of fulfilment except by utmost love of the Law of Righteous Living, utmost self-examination, utmost obedience, utmost dread (of sin) and utmost enthusiasm.”

And the second:

“Good is the Law. It includes freedom from self-indulgence, abundance of good deeds, kindness, liberality, truthfulness and purity.”

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It is the Thirteenth Rock Edict, quoted in full in the beginning, which expresses the majesty of soul of this man Asoka more than any other of his inscriptions. We shall understand the secret of Asoka’s greatness if we take it in conjunction with the following extract from the First Minor Edict:

“For more than two years and a half that I had been a lay disciple, I had not exerted myself well. But a year-indeed for more than a year that I visited the Samgha, I exerted myself greatly.”

“I exerted myself greatly “says the king. Exerted himself in what? In following the teachings of the Enlightened One, Gautama Buddha.

It was the life and teaching of the Buddha which inspired Asoka the Great to become Asoka the Righteous. In that crucial period of more than a year, during his physical and intellectual maturity, he exerted himself greatly. The king of the mightiest empire of his day was likely to choose his words carefully. He uses the word “greatly”. We can imagine with what seriousness and assiduity he must have striven. And we must applaud the common sense with which he dealt with the masses. The masses need a king, and a queen. Never was Asoka without a queen, the indispensable complement to the king. The masses could not rise to the heights of Nirvana; yet they need some transcendental symbol to draw the best out of them. So Asoka instituted religious processions which gladdened the people’s hearts and made them feel nearer the gods. The masses could never go through strenuous physical, mental and spiritual training and development, as the wholehearted devotee did. So Asoka exhorted them ceaselessly both by precept and by his own superb example to live up to their highest vision as far as they possibly could. And the basis for this was a simple morality, rooted in sheer common sense and sound psychology.

Asoka did not place the ascetic ideal before the masses. Love of family and home was his basis for them for righteous living. Asoka well understood that man is broad-based on the animal; and so hunger and sex should have normal fulfilment in order that his people may be healthy and sociable, and not frustrated and anti-social. But he also understood that true worldly happiness lay only in such fulfilment of the organic urges as was tempered, purified and exalted by moral discipline and spiritual idealism.

And the people prospered in the reign of good King Asoka, and were happy, and knew peace for a whole generation as rarely before, if ever. Asoka knew that the peaceful reign of Right could endure only if served by Might-physical and moral Might. And some forty-two years after his accession, the mightiest, the noblest, and maybe the most lovable monarch of India, the foremost peacemaker of the world, passed to his eternal rest.

Within fifty years of the death of the Beloved of the Gods India was once more a jangle of warring nations. For alas! it is not permitted to one individual to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth for all time, unless all others freely co-operate. Since such individuals were wanting, India again experienced sorrow. But that is of the essence of man’s being — he can choose heaven or hell. In the later Mauryan age, as in all ages, as in our own times, man betrays the highest in him.

Asoka died. But the memory of, his unparalleled example lived in the hearts of men. His name was ever on their lips from generation to generation, and the Buddhist records perpetuated some of his achievement. From the Volga to the Pacific Coast, from the steppes of Central Asia to the southernmost edge of the great Indian peninsula, and Ceylon, he was held in reverence. But when fifteen centuries had passed and the Mussulman conqueror reigned in India, Buddhism was exiled from the land of its birth, and the memory of Asoka had sunk into oblivion*. And then, you from these British islands, our youngest and in some ways our best-beloved cousins, from the remote west of Jambudvipa, the Old World, came in your youthful strength and overwhelmed us in the clash of battle. Yet, how lovely is the drama of destiny! “The power that moves all things to good” decreed that your Warren Hastings, your William Jones and Colebrook, your Cunningham and John Marshall, your sons whose greatness lay in careful, painstaking scholarship, should restore to us our beloved, immortal Asoka and his beautiful deeds.

So, the King lives! He shines again like the central star of a great galaxy of kings!

* This was written in 1944.

R.E. = Rock Edict.
K.R.E. = Kalinga Rock Edict.
P.E. = Pillar Edict.

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