King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

(2) The genealogy had been wrongly presented starting withBimbisāra and Ajātaśatru and proceeding from Prasenajit ofMahāmaṇḍala to Nanda (in the singular as just one monarch)to Bindusāra (skipping Candragupta who is conspicuous byhis absence in these records) and to his son by a brahmin lady,Aśokā. 23 An isolated reference to the Maurya Dynasty occurselsewhere in a verse. 24 This genealogical list is not corroboratedby any other in either the Purāṇas or the Sri Lankan sources.(3) Aśoka’s succession to the throne is shown as a peaceful, ifnot miraculous occurrence, with divine intervention, in spiteof Bindusāra’s desire to make Susīma his successor. Susīmawho enters battle to assert his rights comes to his end by fallinginto a trap laid for him by Aśoka’s minister. 25 There is noindication of any war of succession or any interregnum in theform of an interval between accession and coronation.(4) During the first years as king, Aśoka is depicted as a cruel,short-tempered tyrant who could behead with his own handfive hundred ministers who refused to carry out an unreasonableorder and also have five hundred ladies of the court burntalive for cutting down a flowering tree. 26 He is also said to haveestablished a torture-house, a veritable hell, from which nonewho entered was allowed to come out alive. 27 Apparently, theEmperor was depicted as an exceedingly wicked person so as tounderscore the change of character with his conversion to Buddhism.But strangely, his propensity for wickedness is againreflected in the episode where he is said to have ordered a generalmassacre of Ājīvikas because one of them was involved inthe desecration of a Buddha statue. This story negates Aśoka’sprinciple of tolerance, upheld in his inscriptions.192