Asoka The Great

Emperor Asoka of India is regarded as one of the greatest rulers in the history of the world.  Asoka, whose full nale was Asokavardhana, was the King of Magadha (Modern Bihar) and thord emperor of the Mauryan Dynasty.  He ruled over almost the whole of India between 272 and 232 B.C. from his capital Pataliputra (Modern Patna).

The region from which the Mauryas hailed, it is said, was full of peacocks (Mayura in Sanskrit or Mora in Pali).  So, they were called Moriyas or Mauryas.  The Mauryan Dynasty was founded by Asoka’s grandfather Chandragupta Maurya and strengthened by his father Bindusara.  But, it was Asoka who was the greatest of all the Maurya rulers.

Asoka had four children namely KUnala, Mahendra, Sanghamitra and Charumati.  Soon after ascending the throne on his father’s death, Asoka was determined to unite the whole of India under one supreme government.  This was possible only if he could add Kalinga (now Odisha) on the East Coast to his empire.  Kalinga then was an independent kingdom touching the shores of Bay of Bengal.  Asoka declared war on Kalinga to bring it under his control.

The great battle of Kalinga was fought in 261 B.C. Asoka one the battle, but when he saw one lakh soldiers lying dead on the battlefield, he was overcome by grief.  He was shocked at the terrible loss of life.

Asoka was convinced that wars could never solve any problem.  Soon after the conquest of Kalinga, the great Buddhist teacher Upagupta of Madhura converted him to Buddhism.Asoka made it the mission of his life to spread the principles of Dharma (Righteousness) as taught by Buddha.  He had his message spread all over India by having inscriptions carved on rocks, pillars and walls of caves at 240 locations across his empire.  The Mauryan empire under Asoka stretched from Mysore in the South to the Himalayas in the North and from the borders of Assam in the North-East to the Hindukush in the North-Wet.

After a long rule of about forty years, Asoka the great died in 232 B.C.  During his rule, he managed to spread the message of the Buddha in India and also across to Sri Lanka, Nepal, Tibet, China and Mangolia.