King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

He had, nevertheless, to admit that “in one single edict only(Calcutta-Bairat), the term ‘Dhamma’ occurs in its approvedscriptural connotation of Buddhavacana as understood and recognizedby monks.” 75 But, as if compulsively urged to minimizethe importance of this fact, he added: “The Emperor appears tohave been neither well-versed nor keenly interested in them (i.e.Buddhist scriptures), though, speaking to learned monks, hemakes a little show of learning by working into the phraseologyof the edict a small quotation from a scriptural passage.” 76This reference to a small quotation from a scriptural passageshows that, writing in 1955, Sukumar Dutt either deliberatelyignored or was not aware of the invaluable work doneby Beni Madhab Barua, who had analysed the phraseologyof Aśoka with meticulous care and identified numerous(a) very close correspondences with Buddhavacana, (b) technicalterms drawn from Buddhavacana, and (c) parallelsbetween Aśokavacana and Buddhavacana. 77 What is clear isthat, if Aśoka was no student of Buddhist texts, his draftingstaff certainly had people fully conversant with the BuddhistCanon.Eight years after the work of Sukumar Dutt was published,there appeared Romila Thapar’s monograph Aśoka and theDecline of the Mauryas, a product of intensive research done inLondon under the guidance of A. L. Basham. Her summarydismissal of the Buddhist sources with the statement that theymade Aśoka “a monster of piety” was already mentioned.The hypotheses which she tried to establish are:(1) that Aśoka was “not the naive and extreme pacifistsome historians have attempted to make of him” 78 nor “thenaive convert to Buddhism that Buddhist sources would haveus believe”; 79 and212