King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

That the larger corpus of edicts were the pronouncementsof political authority is also evident from the title used byAśoka. He does not refer to himself as rājā of Magadha butcalls himself Devānampiya, “the Beloved of the Gods.” Thenotion of a connection between divinity and kingship wasfamiliar to brahmanical thinking particularly in the traditionof major sacrificial rituals associating kingship with divinity.It was, however, alien to much of the śramanic notions associatedwith political power. The indirect legitimation whichAśoka seeks from deities and celestial beings would havehad a popular comprehension but may have been difficult tojustify in the ideological framework of those sects for whomdeities were irrelevant.In arguing that we have to distinguish between Aśoka asthe individual with his personal belief system and Aśoka performingthe function of a royal statesman, the attempt is not toreduce the importance of the former but to insist that his policies,even if motivated by personal reasons, would have had apublic repercussion and would have to be conditioned by publicreaction. Aśoka used the symbols of Buddhism but saw hisrole in the context of a broader ideology. Such an argumentrequires the historian to look beyond the symbols. Thus donations,dāna, are at one level voluntary offerings made out of asense of piety for the acquisition of merit, puṇya. At anotherlevel donations build institutions. In the context of governance,institutions can become centres of loyalty or otherwise,depending on the nature and the recipient of the donation.Welfare can also relate to piety but an imperial concern withwelfare in the context of differentiated identities and economiescan also speak to ideological concerns.Aśoka’s personal commitment to Buddhism and the royal35