The Empire and the Royal Edicts

Asokan edicts have often been seen as marking the limits of Asoka's empire on the Indian subcontinent, and they contain references to neighbors further south in peninsular India—that is, the Cholas, Cheras, and Pandyas—as well as to the Greek kings Antigonus and Antiochus in the northwest.

Ashoka brought about the political unification of the country. He bound it further by one dharma, one language and virtually one script called Brahmi, which was used in most of the inscriptions... Ashoka followed a tolerant religious policy, not attempting to foist his Buddhist faith on his subjects; on the contrary, he made gifts to non-Buddhists and even anti-Buddhist sects... Above all, Ashoka is important in history for his policy of peace, non-aggression and cultural conquest.^[543]

In contrast to Sharma's argument of the Buddhist dharma/dhamma (or religious policy) being the dominant unifying factor in Asoka's cultural conquest, Romila Thapar suggests that Asoka's dhamma is not to be equated with Buddhist ethics. The transmission of this dhamma came through reiteration in inscriptions and through the agency of officials. “Empire, as understood here, was a specific polity, controlling a demarcated territory, with sovereign authority over its subjects exercised through administrative supervision and a philosophy of persuasive as­sociation.” Monuments were symbols of conquest and power, and Asoka is said to have introduced “a single code of social ethics” which he termed dhamma. Interestingly, the Mauryas did not take what could be called imperial titles. Asoka uses devanampiya (the beloved of the gods) in his inscriptions and speaks of the boundless projection of his dhamma.^[544]

The inscriptions of Asoka are dated in the ruler's regnal years, ranging from eighth to twenty-seventh, and these may be classified into Rock Edicts (Major and Minor), cave inscriptions, and Pillar Edicts (Major and Minor).

The Minor Rock Edicts are said to form the earliest group of Asokan inscriptions, followed by the Major Rock Edicts, which consisted of a set of 14 proclamations inscribed on rock.^[547] In his Minor Rock Edicts, Asoka refers to himself as an upasaka, or lay devotee of the Buddha, and expresses his desire that the dhamma percolate down to include elephant-trainers, charioteers, teachers, and scribes. It would seem that the southern versions of these edicts all belong to a single recension, which was engraved extensively upon the hills at one specific time, as indicated by the refer­ence to 256 nights after the king became a lay worshipper.^[548] The dhamma of these records is largely ethical, with the injunction to “obey mother and father, obey the teachers; have mercy on living beings; speak the truth and propagate the dhamma.”

The Pillar Edicts were the last to be promulgated, their location being re­stricted largely to the north. No example of these has so far been found south of the Vindhyas. Ghosh was perhaps one of the few scholars to suggest that Asokan pillars marked sites of Buddhist stupas or shrines that were constructed under the direction of the ruler.

The location of the pillars forms a cluster in the middle Ganga Plain, proceeding in a linear pattern. Traditionally, these were regarded as monolithic. Subsequent research has shown that the fine-textured sandstone that was used for the pillars was obtained from the Chunar hills and was transported in blocks to sites in the Ganga Plains through an elaborate riverine navigation system. This is further con­firmed by comparing the lithographic composition of a Mauryan period fragment from Sarnath with Chunar sandstone. Investigations have shown that the ancient quarries were used once, and that a block, when detached from its parent bed, was dressed by chiseling it into a cylindrical shape. This shape facilitated the transpor­tation of stone blocks that were finally assembled and finished at the site of their installation by itinerant stone masons. A plaster coat of crushed sandstone with he­matite pellets was applied to the surface of the pillars to facilitate the engraving of the edicts.^[550]

The Pillar Edict series is comprised of a set of six proclamations and appears to be the result of careful composition. In Pillar Edict 1, dhamma is declared to be an important element of policy, and in the following edicts the king enumerates concrete measures with which he tried to promote the cause of dhamma.

Recent scholarship also questions the traditionally held view that Asoka was the author of the inscriptions and that he dictated them and ordered them to be engraved on pillars and rocks.^[551] It is suggested that the inscriptions were accompanied by covering letters and were engraved locally. They were transmitted in Magadhi Prakrit, the dialect known to have been spoken in the ancient kingdom of Magadha, which formed the core of the Mauryan Empire. As the range of dialects varies from series to series, it is evident that the scribes tried to write in the dia­lect they thought was appropriate for the region, except in the case of Karnataka in the south. Thus, the edicts of Asoka were mediated by several layers of editorial, anthologizing, inscriptional, and translation activities.

The edicts of Asoka refer to several officials or mahamatas: those in charge of frontier areas, those overseeing women's welfare, and dhamma-mahamatas whose task was to spread dhamma. Rock Edict V describes them as “busy in all sects, establishing dhamma, increasing the interest in dhamma and attending to the wel­fare and happiness of those who are devoted to dhamma.” Major Rock Edict III refers to officials at the district level, such as yutta and parisa (or “counselors”). One of the terms that Asoka uses almost a hundred times in his inscriptions is dhamma or dharma, and perhaps for the first time dhamma becomes a key concept in political theology, though the term is difficult to translate (as we discuss in the next section).