King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

how he had been touched to believe in the Buddha’s conceptionof right conduct by the shock he had sustained in the earlyyears of his reign by seeing with his own eyes the miseries hehad inflicted on the Kalinga State to the south of him, by makingwar on it.Aśoka modelled himself after the Buddha, and worked forthe welfare and happiness of his subjects, whom he considered“my children.” He carried out the principle of Love that theBuddha had stressed by extending his hand of friendship evento the peoples outside his domain. Aśoka literally means “withoutsorrow,” the name of the ideal state of life that the Buddhaaspired to achieve. Of the successors who added their own quotato the achievements of the Buddha, Aśoka heads the list. Hedelighted in calling himself, not Aśoka, but Priyadarśi, He-whohas-realized-the-good(of the people); and on that score he wasDevānampriya, “beloved of the gods.”Aśoka’s reign was the Golden Age of India. His vast empirebecame a land of peace and happiness. Here was a ruler whoruled according to the law of the Buddha. Aśoka was imbuedwith the spirit of the teaching of the Master, he was one wholived the Law. He looked after the people as a saint looks afterhumanity. He completely gave himself up to the Master, to theDhamma, to the Sangha and to the people. Inscribed rocks andstone pillars, still found from Kashmir to Orissa, bear testimonyto the extent of Aśoka’s Empire, the righteousness and wisdomof his rule and the nobility of his character. His kingdom fromplain to mountain-cave was freedom’s home.The spread of Buddhism in India at first was due to the effortsof the Sangha which handed down the Dhamma, the teachingof the Buddha. The Emperor Aśoka took a personal interest inspreading his new faith in India, and in foreign countries withwhich he had political and commercial relations. 59But sometimes adulation exceeded the limits of accuracy. Forinstance, Joseph McCabe in his The Golden Ages of History206