Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor

by Charles R. Allen

  The Legend of King Ashoka, as revealed by Burnouf, took a very different line. This was a text that belonged to the Mahayana school, which had its origins in the split that came to a head at about the time of the Third Buddhist Council. Initially, both schools preserved by oral transmission the teachings of the Buddha spoken in the Prakrit tongue in the form of the Tripitaka or ‘Three Baskets’. These Buddhist scriptures were first set down in writing in about the first century CE with both traditions using the same Brahmi script, but whereas the southern Buddhists stuck with Pali the northerners abandoned it in favour of the more refined religious language of the Brahmans, Sanskrit.3

  The Legend of King Ashoka was therefore set down in Sanskrit and its portrayal of Ashoka is very different from that given in the Great Dynastic Chronicle or as revealed in Ashoka’s edicts. It makes no reference to the great slaughter at Kalinga or to Ashoka’s subsequent remorse and conversion. It has nothing to say about the Third Buddhist Council or the split in the Buddhist Church. There is no mention of the Buddhist elder Moggaliputta Tissa and it is entirely silent on the subject of the propagation of Buddhism abroad. Instead, its focus is on the leading roles played by the elders of its own school in controlling the initial violence of Ashoka and redirecting him to work for the Buddhist Church. The emperor’s conversion is now ascribed not to the words of his nephew Nigrodha but to a saintly monk named Samudra and his serenity under torture. In place of Moggaliputta Tissa the Buddhist centre-stage is now occupied by the elder Upagupta. It is Upagupta who advises Ashoka on all spiritual matters as his guide and mentor, and who organises Ashoka’s pilgrimage. As for Ashoka himself, the Legend of King Ashoka portrays him as a seriously flawed individual, a cruel, hot-tempered oppressor until his conversion to Buddhism. The king’s transformation under Buddhist guidance is presented as a Buddhist morality tale, but one that provides some intriguing – although not necessarily reliable – insights into the private life of Ashoka and the seeming nightmare of his dotage and death.

  The Legend of King Ashoka opens with a long account of Upagupta’s saintliness in a previous life before describing how Upagupta is reborn the son of a perfume seller of Mathura and ordained as a Buddhist monk. Only then does Ashoka come into the story, beginning with his previous existence as a boy who meets the Buddha, also in a previous life, on the road and makes him an offering of a handful of dirt – an action with profound karmic consequences. The Buddha accepts the offering and predicts how in consequence the boy will be reborn as Ashoka a hundred years after his own death.

  The Legend of King Ashoka then lists the kings of Magadha but entirely omits Chandragupta, describing Bindusara simply as the son of Nanda. Ashoka’s mother is here named as Subhadrangi, the daughter of a Brahman of Champaran (in North Bihar). The jealousy of the women of the royal household keeps Subhadrangi away from King Bindusara so she trains as a barber. When she finally gets an opportunity to shave the king she explains she is a Brahman and tells her story, whereupon Bindusara makes her his chief queen. The first fruit of their union is named Ashoka, ‘without sorrow’, because by his birth his mother has emancipated herself from suffering. However, Bindusara rejects the boy because his skin is ‘rough and unpleasant to the touch’ – a direct consequence of his offering of dirt in his previous birth. Ashoka grows into an unruly youth and is handed over for disciplining to an astrologer, who foretells that he will succeed his father to the throne. This displeases King Bindusara, who favours his eldest son Sushima. The city of Taxila then rebels against King Bindusara, who sees an opportunity to get rid of Ashoka and sends him to deal with it, allowing him an army but no weaponry. However, Ashoka is made welcome by the Taxilans and the rebellion is resolved. The prince then goes on to deal with disturbances in the country of Kashmir, where he wins the support of two powerful mountain warriors – possibly Greek local rulers or mercenaries.

  Meanwhile in Pataliputra the heir-apparent Sushima angers his father’s (unnamed) chief minister by slapping his bald head in jest, causing the minister to reflect that when Sushima becomes king he will use his sword just as freely. The minister turns all the other ministers, including his own son Radhagupta, against Sushima and for Ashoka. The Taxilans rise in rebellion for a second time and on advice of his chief minister King Bindusara sends Sushima to deal with it. But then Bindusara falls seriously ill and orders Sushima’s recall, commanding Ashoka to go in his place. However, the king’s ministers delay the king’s order to Sushima and smear Ashoka’s body with red turmeric to make him appear too sick to travel. When it is clear that Bindusara is dying, Ashoka appears before him dressed in full royal regalia and calls on his father to make him temporary ruler. This makes Bindusara so apoplectic with rage that he vomits blood and dies.

  As soon as he hears of his father’s death Sushima marches on Pataliputra. Ashoka deploys his two mountain warrior allies to guard two of the city’s gates, his ministerial supporter Radhagupta takes charge of a third gate and he himself takes on the defence of the fourth and eastern gate, where Sushima is lured into a trap (given here and below in a modern translation by John Strong):

  Radhagupta set up an artificial elephant, on top of which he placed an image of Ashoka that he had fashioned. All around he dug a ditch, filled it with live coals of acacia wood, covered it with reeds, and camouflaged the whole with dirt. He then went and taunted Susima: ‘If you are able to kill Ashoka, you will become king.’ Susima immediately rushed to the eastern gate, intending to do battle with his half-brother, but he fell into the ditch full of charcoal, and came to an untimely and painful end.4

  Once Ashoka has been consecrated as king of Magadha he reveals his true character. When his ministers challenge his order to cut down all fruit and flowering trees he beheads five hundred of their number, and when he learns that his concubines dislike caressing his rough skin he orders them to be burned alive. He also appoints as his executioner one Chandagirika, ‘the fierce mountaineer’, and builds a prison that is lovely to look at from the outside but contains all the tortures of hell. Chandagirika sets about inflicting the ‘five great agonies’ on all who enter its portals. But then a Buddhist novice monk named Samudra wanders into Ashoka’s ‘hell’ while begging for alms. Finding the monk impervious to his cruelty, Chandagirika reports this to the king, who comes to see for himself and is confounded by Samudra’s fortitude. Samudra then explains that he has been freed ‘from the terrors of sam-sara’ – the suffering involved in rebirth – thanks to the teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha and goes on to tell Ashoka the Buddha has prophesied that one hundred years after his Great Final Extinguishing a mighty king named Ashoka will rule in the city of Pataliputra. The king will be a Chakravartin or ‘Wheel-turning Monarch’ who will follow the example of the Buddha’s turning of the wheel of the Dharma. He will also be a Dharmaraja or ‘Righteous King’ who will distribute the relics of the Buddha far and wide, building eighty-four thousand Dharmarajikas or ‘Righteous King’s monuments’ to contain them. That is what the Buddha has prophesied, says Samudra, ‘But instead your majesty has built this place that resembles a hell and where thousands of living beings have been killed.’

  So moved is Ashoka by these words that he promises to fulfil Sakyamuni Buddha’s prophesy. He converts to Buddhism, destroys his hell prison and Chandagirika with it, and asks Upagupta to become his spiritual mentor, after which issues a proclamation declaring Buddhism to be the official religion of the country.

  The reformed king then sets out to perform meritorious acts, including the building of eighty-four thousand ‘Righteous King’s monuments’, containing portions of the Buddha’s relics, throughout his empire. This he does with the help of an elder named Yashah, abbot of a monastery outside Pataliputra known as the Kukkutarama, or ‘Cock monastery’. At the request of the people of Taxila he causes three and a half thousand million stupas to be built in their country, and by his order the yakshas, or semi-deities, build ten million stupas along the subcontinent’s seashore. Upagupta then takes Ashoka on
a pilgrimage to the holy places of Buddhism, beginning with Lumbini, where Ashoka makes an offering of a hundred thousand pieces of gold and builds a stupa. He repeats the process at Kapilavastu, Bodhgaya, Sarnath and at Kushinagara, where King Ashoka is so overcome with motion that he faints and has to be revived by his attendants.

  With this first pilgrimage to the holy places of Buddhism completed, Ashoka is then taken by Upagupta to visit the stupas of the great saints of Buddhism who have followed Sakyamuni Buddha. However, what particularly arouses the faith of the king is the Bodhi tree. When he returns to Bodhgaya to find that the Bodhi tree is dying, he again faints. He learns that the Bodhi tree has been cursed by an act of sorcery instigated by his chief queen, Tishyarakshita, who has been angered by the king’s forsaking of the old family religion. The queen realises her mistake, gets the curse lifted and waters the roots of the Bodhi tree with a thousand pitchers of milk a day until it revives, whereupon Ashoka proclaims:

  I will twice perform the highest honours;

  I will bathe the Bodhi tree

  with jars full of fragrant waters,

  and I will undertake to honour the sangha

  with a great quinquennial festival.

  Ashoka then orders a great quinquennial (held every five years) festival to be held outside Pataliputra, attended by monks from every corner of the land and from beyond the Himalayas. He honours the monks gathered there and deputes an elder to preach the true religion throughout his empire

  The last section of the Legend of King Ashoka is taken up with tales of the emperor’s decline and death. It begins with the story of the birth of Ashoka’s son Dharmavivardhana by his queen Padmavati. Ashoka is overwhelmed by the beauty of the boy’s eyes and on hearing them compared to a Himalayan bird called the kunala he renames the boy Kunala. A Buddhist elder foresees that Kunala will lose his eyesight and teaches him about the impermanence of all things. Ashoka’s chief queen Tishyarakshita then falls in love with Kunala’s eyes. When he rejects her advances and calls her ‘mother’, Tishyarakshita plots his destruction.

  History now seems to repeat itself as Taxila once more rises in revolt against the king. Prince Kunala is sent to deal with the rebellion, and is warmly received by the people of Taxila, who explain that their quarrel is with the king and his arrogant ministers. Ashoka then falls dangerously ill in Pataliputra, with ‘an impure substance’ oozing from his pores. He sends for Kunala to return to Pataliputra to take over the kingdom, but Queen Tishyarakshita fears that after her indiscretion Kunala will order her killed if he succeeds to the throne. She therefore sets out to find a cure for Ashoka’s illness by making enquiries to see if anyone is suffering in the same way as the king. One such victim is found and brought to the queen, who kills him, cuts open his belly and discovers a large worm. She experiments with a succession of remedies, none of which kills the worm until she tries an onion – a vegetable regarded as unclean and therefore avoided by Brahmans and Kshatriyas. She doses the king with onion and cures him, and as a reward asks to be allowed to rule the country for a week. She then takes her revenge on Kunala by sending a message to Taxila in the king’s name ordering him to be blinded.

  Knowing his fate is preordained, Kunala submits and is blinded. He and his wife then take to the road as beggar musicians. They make their way back to Pataliputra where Ashoka hears Kunala singing outside the walls of his palace and sends for him. He recognises his son and falls to the ground weeping. He hears Kunala’s story and ‘burning with the fire of anger’ orders Tishyarakshita to be tortured to death. However, Kunala begs for the queen to be forgiven and because he has only compassion for his wicked stepmother his eyesight is restored. His father heeds his call for forgiveness – but still has Tishyarakshita burned to death.

  After these events Ashoka teaches his younger brother Vitashoka the nature of suffering and, with the help of the elder Yashah, Vitashoka is ordained as a Buddhist monk. Initially, Vitashoka enters the Cock monastery outside Pataliputra but after finding this too noisy he retreats to the Himalayas. In the meantime, an enemy of Buddhism has circulated a painting of himself with the Buddha lying at his feet, which so angers Ashoka that he puts a price on the man’s head. A cowherd then catches sight of Vitashoka, who has allowed his hair and beard to grow, and mistakes him for the blasphemer. The cowherd kills him and brings his head to the king to claim the reward, whereupon Ashoka recognises his younger brother and is deeply grieved. Upagupta explains that the death of his brother is a consequence of Ashoka’s cruelty.

  According to the Legend of King Ashoka, the great emperor’s last days are not happy ones. As he becomes increasingly ill and infirm, Ashoka becomes obsessed with giving donations to the Buddhist Church, to the point where the state treasury is in danger of being emptied. Prince Kunala’s son Sampadi has been appointed heir-apparent and on the advice of his counsellors he prohibits the state treasurer from disbursing any more state funds. Emperor Ashoka then starts donating his own personal tableware: first his gold dishes, then his silver plates and finally his copper plates, until his food is being served on plates of rough earthenware. He is finally left with nothing of his own but half a myrobalan, or cherry plum fruit. This he presents to the Cock monastery as his last gift, with the words:

  He who previously ruled the earth

  Over which he spread his umbrella of sovereignty

  And warmed the world like the noonday sun at its zenith –

  Today that king has seen his fortunes cut off.

  Deceived by his own karmic acts, he finds his glory gone

  like the setting sun at dusk.

  The dying Ashoka has the cherry plum fruit mashed and put into a soup for distribution to the community of monks at the Cock monastery. He asks his minister Radhagupta who is lord of the earth and is assured that he is. He then struggles to his feet, turns to each point of the compass and with a gesture of offering declares that he is presenting the whole earth ‘to the community of the Blessed One’s disciples’. He has these words written on a document that he seals with his teeth – and then dies. With what remains in the state treasury the ministers buy back the late king’s dominions from the Buddhist Sangha and Ashoka’s grandson Sampadi is consecrated as king.

  But this is not quite the end of Ashoka’s story as told in the Ashokavadana, for a brief epilogue is attached. It begins: ‘Sampadi’s son was Brhaspati who, in turn, had a son named Vrsasena and Vrsasena had a son named Pushyadharman, and Pushyadharman begot Pushyamitra.’ It goes on to relate how King Pushyamitra, wishing his name to be as renowned as that of Ashoka, asks his Brahman priest how he can accomplish this. He is told that there are two ways: one is to do what King Ashoka did and build eighty-four thousand stupas; and the other is to destroy all those same stupas. Pushyamitra decides to follow the latter course and advances with his army on the Cock monastery established by Ashoka outside Pataliputra, where he tells the monks to choose between saving themselves or the monastery. The monks offer to sacrifice themselves but Pushyamitra destroys both the monks and the monastery. He then embarks on a campaign against all Buddhist institutions, offering a reward for the head of every monk brought to him, until finally confronted by a yaksha guardian deity who flattens him under a mountain. ‘With the death of Pushyamitra,’ declares the last line of the Legend of King Ashoka, ‘the Mauryan lineage came to an end.’

  The Legend of King Ashoka contains some obvious errors, such as its description of Bindusara as the son of Nanda and the Brahman regicide Pushyamitra as the last of the Mauryas. Its list of names of the Mauryan kings is also seriously at odds with those given in the Vishnu, Matsya, Vayu and Brahmananda Puranas (see chart, p. 36). However, when this list of Mauryan kings provided by the Legend of King Ashoka is set alongside the other lists in the Puranas, one thing is very clear: the confusion of Mauryan rulers’ names after the death of Ashoka. It points to an empire already falling apart in the great monarch’s last years, and then at his death breaking up into two or more warring regions as var
ious claimants fought for supremacy, very much as the Successors had done after the death of Alexander.

  Even as Burnouf was completing his work on the history of Buddhism, rumours came from Russia of more previous unknown documents on early Indian Buddhism. They emanated from the Department of Mongolian Language at the University of Kazan on the Volga River, where the students were using a handwritten text translated from the original Tibetan. In 1840 one of those students, Vasili Vasiliev, joined the Russian Orthodox Church Mission in Peking (Beijing), and procured a copy of this same text in the original, printed by woodblock and entitled Gya-gar Chos-byung, or The History of Buddhism in India, the work of a Tibetan Lama named Taranatha.5

  Taranatha’s History of Buddhism in India devotes three of its forty-four chapters to King Ashoka, so adding another twist to the story. Although written as recently as 1608, it had drawn on older sources that included the Divine Stories but also two works now lost.6 These lost sources told the story of Ashoka from a perspective best described as north-eastern, in that it allied itself with the Northern school but promoted the role of the early Buddhist Church in northern Magadha. In this version the great Buddhist instructor who teaches and advises King Ashoka is not Upagupta, the leading apostle of Mathura, as given in the Legend of King Ashoka, but Yashah, abbot of King Ashoka’s Cock monastery outside Pataliputra – which also features in the Great Dynastic Chronicle as the Ashokarama.

  Taranatha’s History has been dismissed by scholars as too garbled to have any credence, but it contains elements that deserve to be considered when reconstructing Ashoka and his time. It describes Ashoka as the son of Nemita, king of Champaran in north Magadha, by a merchant’s daughter. Unlike his elder brothers who live in luxury, Prince Ashoka lives simply and sits on the ground to eat. When the mountain people of Kashmir and Nepal revolt he is sent to deal with them and is rewarded by his father by being made governor of Pataliputra. When King Nemita dies his ministers install Ashoka as ruler of Pataliputra, where he worships various mother-goddesses, including Uma Devi, consort of Shiva, and keeps five hundred women in his harem: ‘Indulging as he did in lust for several years, he came to be known as Kama Ashoka [kama meaning ‘love’ or ‘desire’].’7