Aśoka
| English Phonetics | Aśoka |
|---|---|
| Sort Name | Aśoka |
| Birth: | c. 300-232 BCE |
|---|
Tibetan calendar dates
Biographical Information
Aśoka. (P. Asoka; T. Mya ngan med; C. Ayu wang; J. Aiku ō; K. Ayuk wang 阿育王) (c. 300-232 BCE; r. c. 268-232 BCE). Indian Mauryan emperor and celebrated patron of Buddhism; also known as Dharmāśoka. Son of Bindusāra and grandson of Candragupta, Aśoka was the third king of the Mauryan dynasty. Aśoka left numerous inscriptions recording his edicts and proclamations to the subjects of his realm. In these inscriptions, Aśoka is referred to as Devānām Priyaḥ, "beloved of the gods." These inscriptions comprise one of the earliest bodies of writing as yet deciphered from the Indian subcontinent. His edicts have been found inscribed on boulders, on stone pillars, and in caves and are widely distributed from northern Pakistan in the west, across the Gangetic plain to Bengal in the east, to near Chennai in South India. The inscriptions are ethical and religious in content, with some describing how Aśoka turned to the dharma after subjugating the territory of Kaliṅga (in the Coastal region of modern Andhra Pradesh) in a bloody war. In his own words, Aśoka states that the bloodshed of that campaign caused him remorse and taught him that rule by dharma, or righteousness, is superior to rule by mere force of arms. While the Buddha, dharma, and saṃgha are extolled and Buddhist texts are mentioned in the edicts, the dharma that Aśoka promulgated was neither sectarian nor even specifically Buddhist, but a general code of administrative, public, and private ethics suitable for a multireligious and multiethnic polity. It is clear that Aśoka saw this code of ethics as a diplomatic tool as well, in that he dispatched embassies to neighboring states in an effort to establish dharma as the basis for international relations. The edicts were not translated until the nineteenth century, however, and therefore played little role in the Buddhist view of Aśoka, which derives instead from a variety of legends told about the emperor. The legend of Aśoka is recounted in the Sanskrit Divyāvadāna, in the Pāli chronicles of Sri Lanka, Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa, and in the Pāli commentaries, particularly the Samantapāsādikā. Particularly in Pāli materials, Aśoka is portrayed as a staunch sectarian and exclusive patron of the Pāli tradition. The inscriptional evidence, as noted above, does not support that claim. In the Mahāvaṃsa, for example, Aśoka is said to have been converted to Theravāda Buddhism by the novice Nigrodha, after which he purifies the Buddhist saṃgha by purging it of non-Theravāda heretics. He then sponsors the convention of the third Buddhist council (samgītī) under the presidency of Moggaliputtatissa, an entirely Theravāda affair. Recalling perhaps the historical Aśoka's diplomatic missions, the legend recounts how, after the council, Moggaliputtatissa dispatched Theravāda missions, comprised of monks, to nine adjacent lands for the purpose of propagating the religion, including Aśoka's son (Mahinda) and daughter (Saṅghamittā) to Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka, where the legend appears to have originated, and in the Theravāda countries of Southeast Asia, the Pāli account of King Aśoka was adopted as one of the main paradigms of Buddhist kingship and models of ideal governance and proper saṃgha-state relations. A different set of legends, which do not recount the conversion of Sri Lanka, appears in Sanskrit sources, most notably, the Aśokāvadāna. (Source: "Aśoka." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 70–71. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
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