DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

7.7 \ CHEAPER AGENTS OF LAW AND ORDER 237
symptom as well as cause of the ultimate collapse of the highly centralized
administration which was never abandoned in theory. The army was no
longer essential, as India had been conquered virtually to its logical
frontiers — wherever there was anything profitable to conquer. Local
garrisons would suffice to police the janapadas, to the extent of defence
against banditry and preventing desertion of the villagers. Such
garrisons could not prevent foreign adventurers making fresh inroads, to
the very heart of the empire, as happened within about sixty years of
Asoka’s death. Vinaya rules for admission demonstrate that the Buddhist
Order no longer offended caste and the state apparatus. Ordination of
runaway slaves or helots was declared invalid, which made it safe to
let the monks enter crown villages. Criminals too were forbidden entry
into the samgha. Yet Sopaka, from the lowest caste (‘dog-eater’
Candala) had been a leading disciple of the Buddha himself while the
impressive conversion of the murderous brigand Amgulimala had been
admired by the startled king Pasenadi. The ascetic preachers had now
become far cheaper agents of law and order than the all-powerful stipendiary
officials backed by well-paid soldiers and checked by still better-paid
spies. The foundations initiated by Asoka received their heaviest
contributions, as at Sand, from the very traders whom the pre-Asokan
state had watched, squeezed and repressed with all its resourceful might.
The king and his people found new common ground in the dhamma,
a fresh class basis for what was left of the state. The Asokan reform
removed a fundamental contradiction in the Arth. statecraft, namely
a moral law-abiding population ruled by a completely amoral king
who was enjoined to practise every crime against subjects and neighbours,
as a matter of policy.
Notes and references :
1. For Taxila’s submission, Alexander’s conquests and foreign sources. CAl
and ITM remain competent surveys.
2. S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar : Beginnings of south Indian history (Madras 1918),
pp. 81-103, for the rather thin evidence, beaten out still thinner; also Soma Sundara
Desikar, IHQ, 4, 1928, 135-145. It is not possible to discover from such works, or V.
R. Ramchandra Diksitar’s translation of the Silappadikaram (Oxford, 1939), or his
Studies in Tamil literature, and history (London) when the plough was first used in