King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

sequently carried on in the historical records of the BuddhistSaṅgha of Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Cambodia, has continuedto modern times. Although, as will be shown later inthis paper, Aśoka has remained in vivid living memory in theminds of every successive generation of Theravāda Buddhistsoutside India, he was virtually forgotten in the land of his birthand remained for at least a millennium an unknown and unrecalledname until the 1830s. 1 Commencing with the discoveryand deciphering of his most impressive lithic records onrocks and pillars and his identification with Aśoka the Righteous(Dhammāsoka) of Sri Lankan Pali literature, Aśoka hasbecome the cynosure of not only scholarly attention but alsopopular admiration. Since the publication of the first monographon Aśoka by Vincent A. Smith in 1901, hardly a decadehas elapsed without a fresh attempt to evaluate his place inhistory from a different point of view. Opinions on his careerand achievements are indeed numerous.The purpose of this paper is to review a number of suchevaluations with a view to finding answers for three mainquestions on which a fair amount of disagreement and controversyhas come into being. These questions are:(1) To what extent does the Buddhist literature presenta historically reliable portrayal of Aśoka’s role andachievements?(2) What impact did Aśoka’s policy of “conquest throughDharma” (dharmavijaya) have on Indian life andthought during his own lifetime and later?(3) Was Aśoka actually responsible for the decline andfall of the Mauryan Empire?We shall commence our analysis by reviewing what each tra-183