King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

oped a closer association with monks and began to exert himselfin the cause of the Dharma; that he admired the teachingsof the Buddha and had identified his own favourite textswhich he recommended to the clergy as well as to the laity;and he played a leading role, through his new administrativemachinery of Dharmamahāmātras, to prevent schisms in theBuddhist Saṅgha.3. When, How and by Whom?But the questions which remain yet to be solved are: when, howand by whom was Aśoka converted to Buddhism?According to the Sri Lankan Pali sources, Aśoka embracedBuddhism in the fourth year from his coronation. The Sanskritsources, however, are not so specific. But both depict the earlyyears of Aśoka as rough, harsh and violent. The Pali sourcesspeak of his wars of succession against 99 of his hundredbrothers. The Sanskrit Divyāvadāna elaborates the ugly appearanceand fierce nature of Aśoka and presents a grotesque andgruesome episode of how he converted his royal pleasanceinto a place of terror, horror, oppression and tragic deaths ofthe unwary visitors and passers-by through his agent Candagirika.17 It also attributes to Aśoka the beheading of 500 ministerswith his own sword and the burning to death of 500 courtladies. The Chinese Aśokāvadāna resorts to higher levels ofpoetical imagination in representing Aśoka as a most wickedcharacter. These accounts of Aśoka prior to his conversion hadprompted Aśokan scholars to consider them as the results ofa tendency among Buddhist writers to “paint his character asblack as possible in the days before his conversion so that heshould appeal all the more powerfully to the world as a miracleof grace.” 1846