Portrait of Ashoka Ashoka is the third emperor of the Mauryan dynasty, which, between the IV th and the II th century BC. BC, dominated almost all of India, Pakistan and part of Afghanistan. With skill, and thanks to their military power, the Mauryas gradually spread from Pataliputra, the capital of the kingdom located in the valley of the Ganges, until Ashoka unified the whole territory of India for the first time in its history. War of succession An Indian legend, of Buddhist tradition, tells that Ashoka was the son of King Bindusara and one of his wives, Subhadrangi, the daughter of a Brahman. After being kept away from the king's bed by palace intrigue, Subhadrangi finally had access to her husband and bore him a son; she named him Ashoka, "the one who has no pain", because the birth of the baby put an end to his mother's anxieties. Prince Ashoka still enjoys the confidence of his father, who entrusted him with governing the provinces of Ujjain and Gandhara. When Bindusara died in 273 BC. J.-C., Ashoka seized power and ordered to do so to kill all his brothers – six according to one source, 99 according to others – and to subject all their followers to torture. After four years of a bloody civil war, he finally established himself on the throne of Pataliputra. The time of despotism The beginning of his reign was characterized by a cruel despotism. The chronicles indeed report many episodes, perhaps legendary, which earned him the nickname "Canda Ashoka", Ashoka the Cruel. When one day, it is said, the women of his harem disdained him because of his unworthy behavior, he ordered 500 of them to be burned. Similarly, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Faxian reports the tradition that Ashoka had an earthly hell built in the form of a garden surrounded by walls, in which the emperor lured the curious to torture them in horrible ways. Legend has it that a Buddhist monk endured the tortures and thus succeeded in converting the sovereign. However, the most common account of Ashoka's conversion relates to the conquering practice of the Mauryas. With Ashoka's father, Bindusara, the Empire had established itself as the most powerful and extensive in Asia. Only a prosperous kingdom located on the east coast of the Indian subcontinent, Kalinga, in the current state of Orissa, resisted the universal domination of the Mauryas. Around 262 BC. AD, eight years after his accession to the throne, Ashoka began a military campaign to annex this territory, which was crowned with success. According to the estimates of the king himself, 150,000 people were deported, another 100,000 perished, and still more succumbed later to their wounds. When he walked the battlefield and saw with his own eyes the mountains of piled up corpses and the tears of the vanquished, Ashoka understood that the conquest of a kingdom meant death and destruction for all, friend or foe, and misfortune for captives who found themselves far from their families and their lands. A peaceful Buddhist Kalinga's experience gave birth to a new Ashoka, a ruler who, sincerely contrite, wished to purify his soul from the desolation he had caused. This is how he expressed it in one of his stone-engraved edicts:"The beloved of the gods felt remorse for the conquest of Kalinga, for when a country is first conquered, the massacres, death and deportation of people are very sad for the darling of the gods and they weigh heavily on his soul. » For a year and a half, Ashoka invited sages from across the kingdom to join him in intense philosophical debates, seeking that peace his life as a warrior had denied him. But it is Buddhism, the influential contemplative religion that appeared in northern India in the 6th century. century BC. J.-C., who was going to calm his worries. In the tenth year of his reign, Ashoka decided to go on a pilgrimage. For 256 days, the king and his retinue traveled on foot along the banks of the Ganges, as far as Sarnath, near present-day Benares, where Buddha had given his first sermon. Near the sacred city of Hindus was the locality of Bodhgaya, the place where the bodhi tree stood. , under which Prince Siddhartha Gautama had become Buddha, "the Awakened". Seeing the tree, Ashoka felt within it that enlightened serenity he needed, and he erected a temple there. Henceforth, he called himself "Dharma Ashoka", Ashoka the Pious. Subjects on an equal footing Repudiating the glory acquired by arms, Ashoka decided to devote his life to preaching his new faith:the dharma , or doctrine of godliness. He thus attempted to humanize a power he had exercised ruthlessly until then, becoming the first ruler in history who expressly renounced conquest and violence. At least that is how the Indian historical tradition presents it, even if historians recall that, despite his lamentations, Ashoka never renounced the conquered kingdom of Kalinga nor the use of force, even in a moderate way, against the rebellious peoples of the frontier. Still, Ashoka's message was revolutionary. The emperor treated all his subjects equally, in contrast to the doctrines of Brahmanism, in which caste membership defines social position. One of his edicts said:“All men are my children, and just as I wish my children to be happy and prosperous, both in this world and in the next, so I wish them. » The fragile unification of the Empire He made pacifism the principle of his reign. The sound of drums, which once announced the march of soldiers to the battlefield, became what he called "the music of dharma “:the joyous announcement of theater performances that taught the new religion with fireworks and white elephants, symbols of the purity and wisdom of Buddha. He had his edicts engraved on pillars, with the details of his conversion and the doctrines of dharma , on the most frequented places of the Empire and the most borrowed mountain passes. Ashoka founded hundreds of monasteries and shrines, he improved the communication routes between the main capitals, planted trees which gave shade to travelers and provided his empire with wells to quench their thirst, erected hospitals and places of rest to relieve those who entered his lands and went on pilgrimage to the holy places of India. Concerned about the international spread of Buddhism, Ashoka sent his own son, Mahendra, at the head of a preaching mission to Sri Lanka and ambassadors to distant Western courts, such as that of King Ptolemy II Philadelphus in Alexandria. . Ashoka's pacifism has sometimes been accused of having weakened the state and favored its decadence and dissolution, for after his death the Mauryan Empire soon fell apart. A tradition states that, in the last years of his reign, Ashoka lost control of the kingdom. His grandson, Samprati, alarmed by Ashoka's continued donations to the Buddhist order, forbade the royal treasury to give him any further funds, and eventually dethroned his grandfather. Despite this, contemporary India still regards Ashoka as the most important king in its history. He was the unifier of the country and embodied the Buddhist ideal of the chakravartin , the universal monarch, "a king who will reign over this world surrounded by seas without oppression, after having conquered it without violence, with his justice". Find out more Buddhism, C. Becker, Eyrolles, 2013. Timeline 321 BC. AD Chandragupta defeats the last king of the Nanda dynasty and founds the Mauryan dynasty, whose capital is Pataliputra.273 BC. AD Ashoka, the grandson of Chandragupta, ascends the Mauryan throne, after having exterminated his brothers and sisters.262 BC. AD Ashoka undertakes a war to annex the kingdom of Kalinga and increase the power of the Mauryan Empire.232 BC. AD When Ashoka died, two of his grandsons successively inherited the Mauryan Empire:Dasaratha and Samprati.185 BC. AD The last Maurya is assassinated by Pushyamitra, founder of the Sunga dynasty. India is fragmenting politically. Seeking peace of mind Ashoka repeatedly invoked in his edicts the concept of dharma , which can be defined as a force to be applied to each reflection, to each act of obedience or interaction with others, and which implies self-control and righteousness of conduct. He himself set an example by his austere way of life, always keeping a serene and friendly face in front of all, including servants and slaves, and refraining from any form of violence. So much so that, in one of his edicts, he forbade the hunting and sacrifice of animals for the banquets formerly celebrated in the palace. Capital of the Empire Founded in the IV th century BC. BC, Pataliputra was the capital of the flourishing Mauryan Empire. Around 273 BC. BC, it already had 150,000 inhabitants and was one of the largest cities in the world. During the reign of Ashoka, a sumptuous palace was built here, decorated with columns of Persian inspiration. Beloved of the gods To ensure their wider dissemination, the Ashoka inscriptions are written not in Sanskrit, the traditional scholarly language, but in the vernacular, the ancient Prakrit. A bilingual inscription in Greek and Aramaic was also found in Kandahar. Ashoka appears as Devanamp [r]iya Prihadarsi , “the beloved of the gods with a kind look”.
