King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

6Images of Aśoka:Some Indian and Sri Lankan Legendsand their DevelopmentJOHN S. STRONGKING AŚOKA, GREATEST MONARCH OF the Mauryandynasty and first ruler of virtually all of India, is bestknown today for the edicts and inscriptions which he hadengraved on pillars and rock faces all over the subcontinent.In these he tells the touching tale of his change of heart afterthe massacre of the Kalingas, and he proclaims his polity ofrule by Dharma, his advocacy of tolerance, non-violence, andreligious respect, and his concern for common moral decenciesand for the welfare of all beings. 1The importance of the edicts for historical scholarship canhardly be minimized. They are first-hand contemporary documents,and in them Aśoka provides a firm chronological frameworkfor the events of his reign. 2 But it is sometimes useful tothink of the rock inscriptions not as solid blocks of historicalfact, but as flightier pieces of political propaganda, as the campaignspeeches of an incumbent politician who seeks not somuch to record events as to present an image of himself andhis administration to the world.It is, of course, not the only image of Aśoka that we have;Buddhist texts of both the Pali and the Sanskrit traditions have,through the centuries, presented their own views of Aśoka,as have, for that matter, non-Buddhist sources. 3 But the edictsgive us our earliest view of Aśoka and thus form a convenient141