The Dhamma
Asoka insisted that his dhamma was based on ancient tradition, which had been ignored by past kings who governed unjustly. He termed his dhamma “ancient custom” and proclaimed a revival of such tradition.
The involvement of Asoka with dhamma was by no means limited to propagation of an ethical way of life, something that is evident from his records. Minor Rock Edict III was addressed to the Buddhist Sangha and the laity, and contains an unequivocal expression of the emperor's respect and faith in the “three jewels.” The three jewels of Buddhism are identified as the Buddha (or the Enlightened One), dhamma (or the teachings of the Buddha leading to Enlightenment), and the Sangha (or the community of monks). In the Bairat Rock Edict, Asoka recommends the study and reflection of seven texts of the Buddhist canon as a way of ensuring that the dhamma would last forever. Rock Edict VIII dates his pilgrimage (dharmayatra) to Sambodhi (i.e., Bodh Gaya) 10 years after his coronation. Minor pillar inscriptions at Allahabad, Sarnath, and Sanchi (Minor Pillar Edict III) are generally referred to as “schism edicts” and warn monks and nuns against creating schisms in the Sangha. In his edicts, Asoka praises ceremonies performed for religious purposes (maha-[pha]le [e] dhamma- mangale), but decries those performed on the occasion of births, illnesses, and weddings (Rock Edict IX). At Bodh Gaya, the installation of a polished sandstone throne (vajrasana) found by Cunningham in a shrine at the foot of the Bodhi tree is attributed to Asoka.[552] In spite of this active interest in the Sangha and its affairs, the edicts of Asoka make it amply clear that the protection and support of the ruler extended beyond the Sangha to brahmanas, all religious mendicants, as well as to all religious sects. Asoka placed Buddhism side by side with Brahmanism, Jainism, and the Ajivikas in his edicts and stressed that his dhamma was not the doctrine of one religion but was universal.[553]A comparison of the Asokan edicts with contemporary descriptions of kingship as enshrined in the Dharmasastras[554] and the Arthasastra, a treatise on statecraft in Sanskrit traditionally dated to fourth century bce, make it obvious that the dhamma of the edicts was not doctrinal and did not adhere to any one religion, but denoted universal law and righteousness. Scholars have suggested that “in Asoka we see an integration of political theory within a cosmological vision.”[555]
This is not the place to discuss the etymology of dhamma/dharma or changes in its meaning over time from its earliest occurrence in Vedic literature.
What is undeniable is the contribution of Asoka to enhancing its significance within political thought. There is no doubt that early Vedic texts underscored the links between dharma and the king: “The term is especially connected to social order, to the rules that govern society, and to the king's duty to maintain order and to administer the judicial process.”[556] As evident from the frequent use of the term in his edicts, Asoka redefined it to make it almost entirely an ethical concept and articulated a new “religio-moral foundation for the unprecedented imperial formation of which he was the principal architect.”[557] This had far-reaching implications for imperial theology, and it is no surprise that a direct consequence of Asoka's reforms saw the emergence of Dharmasastric literature in Sanskrit, first in the form of sutras and then in metrical treatises beginning with Manu's Dharmasdstra, which gained unprecedented acceptance by the fifth century ce. Dhamma or dharma was to remain at the forefront of religious and political discourse for the next two millennia as Buddhism spread across Asia. In the next section, we stay with India and discuss the afterlife of the pillars of Asoka, which perhaps contributed in a major way to the continuation of the cultural memory regarding Asoka.