About Aśoka
The first paramount political power in Indian history who ruled a major part of the Indian subcontinent from Afghanistan to Karnataka, was the Mauryan ruler Piyadasi alias Ashoka. He maintained relations with his neighbouring countries and sent envoys, gifts and medicinal aids to them. His records mention is contemporary neighbours as Cholas, Pandyas, Satyaputra, Keralaputras, Tamrparni/Sri Lanka and Seleukidian and Ptolemaic rulers of West Asia and Egypt. Ashoka is the popular name of a ruler. His original name was Piyadasi (Priyadarśi). He used the epithet Devānaṁpriya, beloved of the devas, immediately after which we find the use of his proper name was Priyadarśi. This name is found 189 times inscriptions whereas the name Aśoka is used only 4 times which shows that the ruler preferred Priyadarśi. Of these four where the ruler is called Aśoka, the sites are in Karnataka far away from his capital and core territory. Only once it is found at Gujarra in Madhya Pradesh, located in the central zone which was also far away from metropolitan zone. Hence, he himself did not prefer the use of the name Aśoka. In the Greek and Aramaic edicts where he was addressing his immediate foreign neighbours or the extreme northwestern part of his territory, he issued the name Piyadasi. There are multiple Aśokas the Piyadasi alias Aśoka of the Aśokan edicts is the realistic or authentic person who existed in the 3rd century BCE. Rest of the information about this ruler is from memory and the later construct sometimes by Buddhists and sometimes by later rulers and administrators. Sri Lankan Buddhist chronicles, written after almost 300 years over a period of half a centuries, mention Aśoka. However, they create a different image of the ruler. Buddhist texts in Sanskrit from North India like Aśokavadana, 2nd century CE also create a different image of this ruler. We also get some information about the ruler from Brahmanical Puranas and other texts. Besides this he is mentioned in the records of Rudradaman in 150 CE.
He is the person who thought of communicating with his subjects through records. His words were incised on stones and pillars. He had created a scheme of getting such records engraved on stone all over his empire. Initially it started with minor rock edicts where he wanted to communicate that he has become a Buddhist and is taking initiatives to become a devout and zealous devotee and has undertaken a pilgrimage tour of 256 nights. This record is the Minor rock edict I and is found all over his empire. Later he made an addendum to this edict and this was only for the southern territories. This is designated as Minor Rock Edict II. Some sites where this edict is found separately incised on a different stone reflects that initially the Minor Rock Edict I came to the territory for execution and later the Minor Rock Edict II came. There are sites where the two edicts are merged and are in composite form these were the latest ones like Erragudi. The next were the Major Rock Edicts a set of fourteen edicts. They were to be incised on the boundaries of the empire. The scheme was to have two sites at each zone like northwest two at Shahbazgarhi and Manshera in Pakistan, Western zone had these edicts at Girnar and Sopara, Southern zone had it at Erragudi and Sannathi, Eastern zone had it at Dhauli and Jaugada and Northern zone at Kalsi. We do not find the twin site for Kalsi probably we have lost the record. The responsibility of getting the records engraved was entrusted on the lipikaras or the scribes/ scribe supervisors. The concept of Dharmasoka and Chandashoka are all later constructs in the literary works mainly by the Buddhists.
The case of Piyadasi alias Ashoka is unique, he eschewed war not in defeat but in victory. The battle if Kalinga was followed by its annexation into the Mauryan empire and several thousands were killed, imprisoned and deported. However, after this the ruler expressed his remorse in public and recorded his remorse for perpetuity. He incised them on stone and wanted it to be communicated to future generations. They were destined to be long lasting as long as the sun and the moon endure. Mauryas/Ashoka credited with establishing a strong administrative system with a lofty ideal of paternalistic role of the emperor himself. Mauryas are the first power in India to have developed a graded bureaucracy with a differentiated salary-scale (to be paid in cash)-varied functionaries: especially strong military and revenue administrative machinery. The first power to have realized the importance of communication (written, verbal and through routes of communication) and information exchange, with the possibility of a strong spy network.
Ashoka's Dhamma was a very broad-based ideology of the State, attempting a welding of a subcontinental society marked by immense diversities-ethnic, socio-economic, cultural and religious belief systems. Promotion of Buddhism in course of propagation of Dhamma, but Buddhism never turned into the state cult/religion in spite of Ashoka's personal leanings to Buddhism. Ashoka's emphasis on religious plurality; Maurya/Ashoka's encouragement to other Sramanic religions, including the Ajivikas with whom Buddhists and Jainas had major contestations. Ashokan rule witnessed for the first time regular use of stone as the principal medium of sculpture.
This website presents the text of the Asokan records in context. Reading the records and the words of the emperor for the subjects and also for the future generation we can trace a visionary who succeeded in getting what he had aspired during his lifetime and much beyond his times. We shall be reading the oblique references and silences from these records and interpret the Mauryan contemporary times in a critical manner. This has been created for students and researchers to see the records in their original geographical context and also use them as a source for interpreting history.