King Asoka and Buddhism - Urban Dharma

This is due to the repentance of the Beloved of the Gods on havingconquered the country of the Kalingas.There is an interesting drafting point which may usefully beanalyzed. The timing for Aśoka’s involvement with Dharma isexpressed in Prakrit as ‘tato pacā adhunā ladhesu kāligesu’ (Shahbazgarhitext), or ‘tato pacchā adhunā ladesha kāligyesu’ (Kalsitext). This special grammatical construction in Sanskrit, Paliand Prakrit, called the locative absolute, is used to express notmerely a sequence in time (i.e. when such a thing was done…)but more emphatically a “conditioning or accompanying circumstance”29 (i.e. now that it has been done…). What the textwith this syntactical form conveys is that the annexation ofKalinga was an obligation or even a pre-requisite which had tobe fulfilled. Whether it was necessitated by royal duties as conceivedat the time or by demands of national security, Aśokahad to do it. It was only after that that he could devote himselfto the Dharma. Of course, the miseries which his war perpetratedconvinced him how wrong the pursuit of armed conquestwas.Such an interpretation of the Edict on the strict analysisof Aśoka’s choice of words and grammatical form would certainlytake away much of the dramatic effect which popularinterpretations would assign to the Kalinga war. But it confirmsthat the information on Aśoka’s conversion — especiallythe date — as given in the Sri Lankan Pali sources could stillbe accurate.5. Historical Reliability of Rock Edict XIIIThe third question for which an answer is sought in this paperis: How consistent were Aśoka’s statements in terms of timeand place? This question is raised in relation to RE XIII. itself,54