King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

since he showed them the way and the world has prospered.In explaining this he emphasizes the restraint on the killingof animals, self-control, and obedience to parents and elders.The Aramaic version carried a statement that there is no judgementfor pious men. This is almost certainly a reference to theZoroastrian concept of a final judgement when the good andevil of an individual’s actions will be weighed, as part of theZoroastrian eschatology. The Aramaic-speaking populationat this time was largely Zoroastrian and therefore this statementbecomes significant in terms of an appeal which emphasizesthe piety of the present and its merit, rather than theagony of waiting for the final judgement. The Greek versionuses the term eusebeia for dhamma, the literal meaning of whichis sacred duty and can include piety or pious conduct. It wasa general term and had no link with any specific religious orphilosophical school.It is curious that Aśoka makes no reference to the teachingsof the Buddha particularly in an area where Buddhismhad hardly reached and where therefore a specific referencewould have made his intentions very clear. It does raise thequestion of whether he was intending to propagate Buddhismin his reference to dhamma. This question is perhaps betteranswered by looking at the larger corpus of edicts, namely, theMajor Rock Edicts and the Pillar Edicts in which he defines ingreater detail his understanding of dhamma. In order, however,to clarify the context of these edicts it is perhaps necessary tolook at the historical situation in Mauryan India. In the largercorpus of edicts he was more clearly identifying himself as theruler of an empire and speaking to his subjects. The implicitaudience of these edicts is therefore far wider than that of theinscriptions discussed so far.25