King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

The majority of the Indian scholars have graded the credibilityof these in exactly the reverse order, besides assumingthat the lithic records of Aśoka are a complete representationof the Emperor’s life, career, achievements and thought. Whateverinformation is given by Buddhist sources which theserecords do not corroborate is, therefore, rejected as monkishinventions. But this rigour of treatment does not extend toRājatarangiṇī or the Purāṇas.Many of the problems in determining accurately Aśoka’splace in history are to be traced to the proper evaluation of thehistoricity of these sources.(2) The impact of Aśoka’s policy of Dharmavijaya on contemporaryIndia cannot be in any way evaluated as the sources atour disposal say nothing on it. If Aśoka had not elaborated hisconcept of Dhamma and the efforts he made to propagate it bymeans of his own edicts and inscriptions, both his Dhammaand the policy of Dharmavijaya would have gone into oblivion.The mainstream Indian literature and tradition had eitherignored or forgotten him.An obvious assumption would be that neither his Dhammanor his policy of Dharmavijaya made any lasting impression inthe Indian mind. On the contrary, he was not only rememberedgratefully but even glorified sanctimoniously for his uniquecontribution to Buddhism by both the Theravāda Buddhists ofSri Lanka and Southeast Asia and the Mahāyāna Buddhistsof Northern and Eastern Asia.This paradox becomes more confusing on account of thedetermined effort of several Indian scholars to prove that theDhamma of Aśoka should not be equated with Buddhism.222