King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

Aśokan scholars since the 1830’s. 7 The most significant amongthem relates to Aśoka’s connection with Buddhism.The purpose of this paper is to examine the evidence fromall available sources with a view to ascertaining the relativeveracity and reliability of the three identifiable sources ofinformation, namely: (i) the Theravāda tradition as recordedin Pali in the Chronicles and the commentarial literature of SriLanka; 8 (ii) the Mahāyāna tradition as preserved in Sanskritand Chinese literary works and records; 9 and (iii) over twohundred lithic records which the Emperor had caused to beinscribed on rock faces, pillars and caves all over his far-flungempire. 10 In order to avoid the most distasteful display of unmitigatedpersonal prejudices which had characterized the writingsof several Aśokan scholars of the past, 11 no one source willbe considered prima facie to be more reliable than another.This rigour will be applied with equal care to the lithicrecords in spite of the obvious temptation to assign them ahigher degree of reliability on grounds of either contemporaneitywith the protagonist or immutability in transmission.A lesson learnt specially from the epigraphical extravagancesof Nissankamalla in Sri Lankan history 12 is that inscriptionsper se are no more reliable than other sources of historical information.On the contrary, they could even be more misleading.The questions for which we shall seek answers will be thefollowing:1. Was Aśoka converted to Buddhism? If so, when and bywhom?2. What role did the Kalinga war play in either his conversionto Buddhism or the change of his imperialist policy?3. How consistent were his statements in edicts and inscriptionsin terms of time and place?41