King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

starting point for a study of the gradual development of theAśoka legend.Scholars have long debated the question of whether or notAśoka himself actually became a Buddhist. While some claimthat he became a layman (or even a monk), others disputethis, and, maintaining that his policies were solidly rootedin Hinduism, categorically state that Aśoka could not havebeen a Buddhist. 4 To be sure, the evidence on this is mixed. Ina number of edicts, Aśoka appears to indicate his patronageof the Buddhist cause; he leaves an inscription at Lumbinī torecord his pilgrimage to the Buddha’s birthplace; he declareshis reverence for the Triple Gem; he recounts his visit to Bodhgaya,the place of the Buddha’s enlightenment; and, at onepoint, he even takes it upon himself to recommend certainsūtras to the community of monks. 5 On the other hand, it isclear that by “Dharma,” Aśoka, in the edicts, means somethingrather different and more general than the specificallyBuddhist understanding of that term, something more akinto the notion of “piety.” This, in fact, is indicated by the Greekand Aramaic inscriptions of Aśoka discovered at Kandahar,where “Dhamma” is translated as eusebeia and qsyt respectively,terms which, as the late A.L. Basham has pointed out,“have no doctrinal or sectarian connotation whatever.” 6 Sufficeit to say, therefore, that on the basis of the edicts the evidencefor Aśoka’s specific and personal commitment to Buddhismis ambiguous at best.It is important to remember, however, that traditionallyAśoka was not known through his edicts, since the Brahmiscript in which they were written was forgotten soon afterAśoka’s time and was not read again for centuries until itsdecipherment in 1837. 7 Instead, he was known through the142