King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

dition has highlighted as its concept or image of Aśoka as ahistorical personage.2. Aśoka in the Mainstream Indian Tradition and LiteratureIt is regrettable but true that the mainstream Indian traditionand literature is well-nigh devoid of historical sense, and consequentlyconscious works of history are virtually non-existent.The nearest to a historical record are the Purāṇas, even thoughthese works are avowedly religious in character and legendaryin content. But on account of an artificially contrived stratagemto feign antiquity, they present their scanty but neverthelessinvaluable genealogical lists as prophesies in the future tenserather than facts of past history. As Pargiter concluded, even inthese lists, “the lack of the historical sense was a fertile sourceof confusion.” 2The Purāṇas record hardly anything on Aśoka other thanthe “prophecy” that he would succeed Vindusāra (Bindusāraof Buddhist sources) and thus be the third monarch of theMauryan Dynasty with a reign of 36 years. His Mauryan originand descent from Candragupta, too, are recorded.In contrast to the founder of the Mauryan Dynasty, Candragupta,on whom the mainstream Indian tradition and literaturelavished much attention, 3 Aśoka had been relegated tooblivion. Either they deliberately ignored him on account onhis partiality to Buddhism or his life of non-violent religiousand social activity presented no events which captured theirimagination and commanded romantic treatment in ballad,legend or drama. As stated by Romila Thapar in Aśoka and theDecline of the Mauryas, the most comprehensive of the Aśokanmonographs hitherto published: “In the Indian secular sources,184