Indian Emperor
While Ashoka began his reign as a bloodthirsty conqueror, he soon had a change of heart, creating the world’s first welfare state
We explore the expansion of the ancient Indian empire under Ashoka the Great – Hareth Al Bustan reveals the fascinating tale behind the historic leader
At the start of his long reign, India’s King Ashoka seemed destined to become one of history’s great conquerors. Instead, having spilled much blood to seize and expand his realm, he did something far more remarkable – he disavowed violence. The move was all the more spectacular considering his lineage. His grandfather, Chandragupta, was a force to be reckoned with. A brilliant warrior, Chandragupta commanded a mercenary band in the service of Alexander the Great, before overthrowing India’s Nanda kingdom and establishing his own dynasty, the Maurya in 322 BCE. He went on to unite the subcontinent’s north and west, kicking the Macedonians out – with an army of 600,000 men, 8,000 elephants and 30,000 cavalry – and ruling over the subcontinent’s greatest empire for a quarter of a century. The Jains say he abdicated the throne to his son, before fasting himself to death.
Indian society was governed by an increasingly rigid caste system, topped by the Brahman class of Vedic priests. Though Chandragupta was born to one of the lower castes, he filled his court with Brahman. His son, Bindusara, went on to subjugate the subcontinent’s south, cutting through the Deccan plateau, into Mysore – earning himself the nickname ‘Enemy-slayer’. Although he failed to capture the kingdom of Kalinga to the east, he was said to have fathered 101 children, naming his eldest son, Sushima, his heir. One of his numerous dalliances resulted in a boy named Ashoka, a child who seemed set for a life of misery and obscurity. Not only did he suffer from a skin condition that left him “rough and unpleasant to touch”, but he was prone to fainting and fits of epilepsy.
His afflictions made him a wicked youth, supposedly burning his entire harem alive after hearing them gossiping about his skin. Short and stout, he depended entirely on his wits, making an ally of his father’s chief minister, with whom he schemed against his brothers. Eager to put
“Ashoka’s early years were ruled with an iron fist, as he received daily briefings from an elaborate, far-reaching intelligence network of spies”
these skills to good use and keep his son at arm’s length, the king sent Ashoka, now known as ‘the Wrathful’, to put down a rebellion in the northwestern province of Taxila.
Receiving a hero’s welcome, Ashoka went on to forge alliances with two mountain leaders of Kashmir – so successfully, his father named him the viceroy of Ujjain. There, he met a merchant’s daughter called Devi, a committed Buddhist, and defied convention by marrying her for love, rather than prestige. Back in the capital, the prodigious heir Sushima had caused an uproar by slapping a senior minister on the back of his bald head, for comedic effect. Fearing the fickle whims of the future king, the courtiers had his rival claimant Ashoka recalled to the capital. Leaving his lowly wife and children behind, Ashoka returned and married Asandhimitra, from a small kingdom north of modern Delhi, naming her his chief queen. Sushima, meanwhile, was sent to suppress another revolt in Taxila.
In 274 BCE, the king fell gravely ill and ordered Sushima to return, instructing Ashoka to take his place. Desperate to remain in the capital at this critical juncture, Ashoka feigned sickness, and had the chief minister intercept the message to Sushima. Incensed, Ashoka then confronted his father, demanding he be named regent in a manner so shocking, the emperor supposedly fell into an epileptic fit and died. When Sushima finally arrived at the capital, he found his halfbrother defended by a wall of Greek mercenaries. According to the Mahayana Buddhist account, the chief minister dug a ditch within the eastern gate, filled it with coals and covered it with reeds and dirt, before egging the crown prince on, encouraging him to seize his throne. As Sushima rushed into the unguarded eastern gate, he tripped into the fiery hole, enduring a slow, painful demise.
In the ensuing four years, legend tells how Ashoka killed his remaining 98 half-brothers oneby-one, sparing only his uterine sibling, Vitashoka. Having finally wiped out all other male heirs, he enjoyed the rites of coronation. During the ritual, he was cleansed, anointed and consecrated by Brahman priests, emerging a king of divine authority. Now he was the physical embodiment of Dharma itself – the cosmic truth. Adopting his grandfather’s title, Devanampriya, ‘Beloved of the gods’, and the regal name Priyadasi, or ‘Beloved to behold’, he appointed his younger brother viceregent. The emperor would go on to take six wives and scores of concubines, fathering 14 children.
He took quickly to leadership, assessing the affairs of the realm, receiving gold revenues, appointing officials, writing letters, overseeing military exercises and even going hunting. He nominated four princes to serve as viceroys, overseeing the district officers, mahamatras – who, in turn, managed a further group of subordinates. Cities, meanwhile, were run by commissioners with judicial powers.
Ashoka’s early years were ruled with an iron fist, as he received daily briefings from an elaborate, far-reaching intelligence network of spies. One account tells of how he built a ‘Hell Prison’, which looked beautiful on the outside, but was filled with the ‘five great agonies’ of Hell. He allegedly appointed a man called Chandagirika his chief executioner, tasking him with killing people by all manner of depraved tortures, only to later have him tortured to death.
Although he loved meat, and particularly enjoyed eating peacock, in 265 BCE – whether under the influence of his mother, his first wife or a young monk who miraculously survived his ‘Hell’ – he converted to Buddhism. It was a political masterstroke – one that would allow him to further whittle away the influence of the Brahman caste, by simply transitioning their authority away to the humble Buddhists.
He immediately began replacing the 60,000 Brahman on his payroll with 60,000 Buddhist monks – who saw their ranks swell with Brahman converts. However, it would be a few years before he took his new faith seriously enough to give up his beloved peacock meat. During this transition, in his eighth year in power, eager to accomplish what his father could not, the king went against the tenets of his newfound faith and invaded the unconquered eastern kingdom of Kalinga.
The ensuing war would prove far bloodier than he could have imagined. Although the king succeeded in subjugating and drawing Kalinga within his yoke, 100,000 were killed in the violence, and 150,000 displaced. Even amidst the glory of conquest, as he toured his new province, littered with corpses and ruins, the human toll shocked Ashoka to his core. Rather than pride, he simply felt grief and shame.
Hurling himself deeper into Buddhism, he disavowed violence, and began a second phase of leadership, ‘Ashoka Dharma’. He commemorated this transformation in 260 BCE, with a public display of piety, inscribing the first of many ‘Rock Edicts’, pronouncing his conversion to Buddhism. These would later culminate in the Pillar Edicts, inscribed pillars of magnificent polished stone, crowned by lions, bulls and elephants, sat atop the Wheel of Moral Law.
The king sometimes spent three quarters of the year touring the empire, inscribing rock faces in the subcontinent’s first written script, Brahmi, which was developed to communicate his mother tongue of Prakrit. This gave him the means to speak directly with every single one of his subjects.
In the process, he delivered a fascinating array of philosophical, heartfelt musings – unfiltered and raw, a far cry from the modern politician’s sanitised public statement.
One of his rocks directly expressed remorse for the invasion of Kalinga, lamenting: “Peasants who behave with humility towards their friends, servants and labourers are killed in wars and separated from their loved ones”. The king added, “This has distressed me considerably. Why should this happen?” He then vowed to eschew thoughts of war and direct all his energies to Dharma going forwards, encouraging future generations to do the same. “The triumph of Dharma is superior to the triumph of war.”
As he became consumed by his Buddhist faith, this idea of Dharma would become a leading tenet of his leadership going forwards. Curiously, he sought not to enforce the Buddhist notion of
“He was said to have built 84,000 stupas and monasteries across the realm, one for each of the Buddhist discourses”
Dharma upon the empire, but to create a society governed by a universal force of mutual respect and kindness – or as he put it, “All men are my children”. It was a system of civic ethics, rather than a state religion. In one edict, he denounced the “meaningless rituals”, synonymous with Brahmanic worship, instead encouraging people to adopt rituals and customs of “respect for elders” and “treating all living creatures well” – including slaves and labourers.
He insisted that “there should be restraint in preaching one’s faith”, adding that “a person who praises his own faith and derides the faith of others is actually bringing his faith into disrepute”. After all, Buddha himself had said it was behaviour, not birth, that determined whether one was a “priest or an outcast”. While all this served to disgust the Brahman, nothing enraged them so much as his edict denouncing the sacrifice of animals. In the statement, Ashoka even confessed that while his royal kitchens still killed two peacocks and a deer every day to make curry, these too would soon be spared.
During this new phase of governance, Ashoka’s political administration largely resembled that of his grandfather. His mahamatras travelled across the empire five times a year, making sure neither senior nor lower ranking officials were abusing their posts. When Ashoka’s own brother was caught taking liberties with his vice-regency, he was forced to resign, and become a Buddhist hermit. Ashoka also had various officials and employees on the payroll, collecting taxes from peasants, artisans and merchants, and holding lawbreakers to account. He was firm but fair; not only abolishing the death penalty, but offering amnesty on his birthday and the anniversary of his coronation, releasing certain prisoners.
In 254 BCE, the king sent a minister to mediate a dispute between Buddhists and the Nirgrantha, a sect of Jain ascetics who refused to even wear clothes. When the minister was killed, Ashoka called together the Third Buddhist Council at his capital of Pataliputra, to streamline the various Buddhist sects and codify what was considered doctrinally correct. He then began a widespread programme of proselytising – sending monks across the region, bearing the accepted doctrine.
As he grew older, Ashoka became increasingly dedicated to the Sangha, the Buddhist community. He was said to have built 84,000 stupas and monasteries across the realm, one for each of the Buddhist discourses. Rather than mud and plaster, they were built to last – of brick and stone. He supposedly gifted 100,000 gold pieces to every monastery, another 100,000 to the site of Buddha’s birth, and a further 100,000 to the Bodhi tree where Buddha received enlightenment.
The king also revived the magnificent Pancavarsika festival, reimagining it in line with his Buddhist faith. At the end of the proceedings, he erected a platform around the Bodhi tree and poured milk over it, infused with sandalwood, saffron, camphor and perfume, from 5,000 gold, silver, crystal and tiger’s-eye pitchers.
After the king’s chief queen and mother of his beloved heir, Kunala, died, her spot was filled by Tishyarakshita – a Machiavellian anti-buddhist, who had supposedly once tried to destroy the Bodhi tree. Either angered at Kunala for rejecting a sexual advance, or simply hoping to elevate her own son, she supposedly doctored one of the king’s orders, having his heir blinded – while he was, in an all too predictable predicament, putting down a rebellion in Taxila. When Kunala clawed his way back to the capital, sans eyes, the chief minister had the queen killed, and her antibuddhist conspirators executed or banished to the desert. Ineligible, Kunala’s son Samprati was named heir in his stead.
As Ashoka neared his seventies, and his health began to fail, he sustained himself by planning a second Pancavarsika festival, one that would far surpass the first – spending 400,000 gold pieces entertaining 400,000 monks, and even more for his Ashokarama monastic centre. However, decades of philanthropic spending had virtually bankrupted the empire, and the king’s ministers leaned on the young Samprati – who told the treasury to reject Ashoka’s request. Denied his dying wish, to donate all his remaining worldly goods to the Buddhist community, Ashoka slipped away from rulership, allowing Samprati to act in his name – before dying in 233 BCE.
The king’s death would be followed by another troubled succession, with a line of short-reigning kings ushering in the dynasty’s demise, and the return of Brahmanism just half a century later. Though Buddhism would eventually fade from the subcontinent, it informed the future Hindu faith, with Buddha serving as one of Vishnu’s avatars. It would also find fertile ground in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Tibet, China and beyond. Of the two symbols that adorned Ashoka’s Pillar Edicts, the Bodhi tree and the Wheel of the Moral Law, the latter has been immortalised on the modern Indian flag.
It is a fitting tribute to a man, who not only presided over the largest ever Indian empire for three decades, but transformed a minor sect into a major world religion, successfully demonstrating an entirely new model of leadership – one based not on conquest, but universal welfare.
“Even amidst the glory of conquest, as he toured his new province, littered with corpses and ruins, the human toll shocked Ashoka to his core”