5 - Asoka Maurya: The Paradigm

Summary

Scholars have found themselves at variance in their interpretations of the nature of the Buddhist content of Asokan political and religious policy. On the one hand there is the highly idealized and embellished partisan view stated in the Buddhist chronicles and legends that Asoka was the great dhammika dhammaraja, the builder of grand architectural monuments all over India, the great patron of Buddhism, its defender as, for instance, described in the story of the Third Council and the expulsion of 80,000 heretics under the direction of the great monk-elder, Mogaliputta Tissa, and its propagator, as eulogized in the legend of the nine missions sent to spread the message of Buddhism, six within his vast kingdom and three to Ceylon, the “Yona” country (perhaps Bactria) and Suvarna-bhumi (in popular tradition located in the Burma-Siam region).

Certain scholars (e.g., Dutt 1962 and Thapar 1961) have insisted that the Buddhist protagonist “mythologization” of Asoka as the Buddhist emperor, based on the legends and accounts fathered by the monks (as, for example, the Sinhalese chronicles), should be kept separate from the historian's assessment of the evidence based on the inscriptions and archaeological finds.

Unfortunately, the evidence on which to base an objective history of the Asokan era is none too plentiful. The position that we take is twofold:

1. Insofar as the Theravada literature, especially the chronicles and legends, have provided the model of kingship for the kings of Theravada polities, a model both generating and legitimating political action, such a model becomes a part of history and must be seriously taken into account.