Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas: With a new afterword, bibliography and index

by Romila Thapar

First published in 1961, this classic work is based largely on the edicts of Asoka, whose policies are analyzed against the background of Mauryan civilization during the third and fourth centuries B.C. The present edition has been thoroughly revised with a new afterword and archaeological site
map.

Genres: History, India, Nonfiction, Biography, Buddhism, Ancient History

356 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

About the author

Romila Thapar is an Indian historian and Professor Emeritus at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

A graduate from Panjab University, Dr. Thapar completed her PhD in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Her historical work portrays the origins of Hinduism as an evolving interplay between social forces. Her recent work on Somnath examines the evolution of the historiographies about the legendary Gujarat temple.

Thapar has been a visiting professor at Cornell University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the College de France in Paris. She was elected General President of the Indian History Congress in 1983 and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 1999.

Reviews

[Steve]

When he had been consecrated eight years the Beloved-of-the-Gods, the king Piyadassi, conquered Kalinga. A hundred and fifty thousand people were deported, a hundred thousand were killed and many times that number perished. Afterwards, now that Kalinga was annexed, the Beloved-of-the-Gods very earnestly practised Dhamma, desired Dhamma and taught Dhamma. On conquering Kalinga the Beloved-of-the-Gods felt remorse, for, when an independent country is conquered the slaughter, death, and deportation of the people is extremely grievous to the Beloved-of-the-Gods, and weighs heavily on his mind. - excerpt from the 13th Major Rock Edict of Ashoka ()


The legendary Indian ruler Ashoka Maurya (Aśoka, 304–232 BCE) - if one is to believe some of these legends - made the transition from the slaying of ninety-nine of his one hundred brothers during a war of ascendancy and the construction of a "Hell" in which he had people tortured by refined and unspeakably cruel means he had learned during a little sidetrip to the real Hell, to a sudden conversion to Buddhism and transformation to perfect Goodness. Is there enough scientifically founded evidence to try to determine who the actual Ashoka was? And even more interesting to me, what does one know about Mauryan India during this historically first unification of nearly all of greater India?

The noted Indian historian Romila Thapar (b. 1931), a specialist in ancient India, has drawn the ire of certain of her compatriots because she has objected to re-writings of Indian history that she claims to have been motivated more by religious, ideological and political reasons than by factual ones.(*) Her opponents have called her a Marxist, but there is no sign of that ideology in this carefully scholarly text in which she must comb through unreliable, incomplete sources shot through with legends, which she relates for the reader to contrast the often widely disparate versions and then to deconstruct them.

Ashoka was the third and in important respects the greatest member of the Mauryan dynasty, founded by Ashoka's grandfather, Candragupta, who had encountered both Alexander the Great and Seleucus I during their attempts to conquer India.(**) On the advice of his remarkable advisor, Kautalya (whose great text of statecraft, Arthashastra, has survived and is an invaluable source for many aspects of Mauryan India), Candragupta set up a highly centralized bureaucracy that impinged on nearly all aspects of social and economic life in the empire, at least in principle. Ashoka's father, Bindusara, was apparently a great conqueror and significantly increased the expanse of the realm. Thapar carefully dates Ashoka's coronation to 269-268 BCE after a nearly four year interregnum of war with his brothers for the rule. After his ascent to power, the sole war of Ashoka for which we have solid evidence - the Kalinga War in 260 BCE - was a source of deep regret for him (see the above quote from one of his edicts carved into stone). It would appear that he renounced war thenceforth.

What he did instead was to promote religious tolerance and social responsibility in an attempt to meld an empire of many peoples, religions and cultures into a harmonious whole (ultimately failing, at least in the latter goal). One of the ways in which he did so was to have moral "edicts" carved into pillars and stones all over the empire in the local languages and regularly read out to the people. Ashoka's extant edicts are translated in an Appendix and are strongly infused with a Buddhist respect for all life and with appeals for tolerance. The very embodiment of the enlightened ruler, he travelled throughout the realm preaching the Dhamma and listening to the problems of the people. He also promoted the spreading of the Buddhist Word to other countries, called the (for Buddhism extremely important) Third Buddhist Council together, and endowed the Buddhist infrastructure. An ancient ruler who held a vast empire together not by force but by moral suasion is indeed noteworthy, particularly since his suasion was based on respect for all living beings and not on threats of horrible afterlives for transgressors.

Thapar ties Ashoka's views and actions into his social, political and economic context, and it is her nuanced description of this context (insofar as it can be reconstructed at this time) that is the main point of interest for me in this text and has helped me to begin to understand the foundations of the unique Indian social structure. Though the beginnings of the caste system were pre-Mauryan, there was still a great deal of social mobility prior to the rise of the Mauryas. It was during the Mauryan dynasty that the ramification into finer and finer castes and the crystallization of the caste system preventing any movement between the castes really started, despite the fact that none of the important Mauryan monarchs were followers of the mainline brahmanical religion. Though Thapar writes that Ashoka's political and social vision failed to hold the empire together long after his death, the nearly thirty years of peace during his reign, the extensive construction of roads and the trade-facilitating empire-wide administration set up by the Mauryas spawned an era of economic growth that lasted well after the collapse of the unwieldy empire. She ends the book with a brief overview of the rapid decline and end of the Mauryan dynasty during the half-century following Ashoka's death.

The text of the original version of Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas published in 1961 is supplemented with an updated bibliography and an extensive Afterword that brings the text up to the stand of 1997. I am very favorably impressed with Thapar's scholarly balance and clarity of expression and have already started another of her books.


() Piyadassi is one of Ashoka's names. The Dhamma (Dharma) is the Way or Law of the universe for Buddhism and Hinduism, very roughly speaking, at least ordinarily. But Ashoka appropriated the word to denote also his own Buddhism-inspired view of social order, which he promoted in his edicts.

(*) Signs of such ire even here in GR, noticed by accident: a certain "Ruchi" one-starred at least five of Thapar's books in one day. Really? Let me say in advance that anyone making an ad hominem attack on either the author or myself in any thread of mine will find their comment deleted and themselves blocked permanently. I just underwent such an attack because of my recent discussion of Abu Nuwas' "transgressive" poetry and find I have no tolerance for it. If you have scholarly objections, fine, but since I have read almost none of Thapar's sources, even in translation, I am in no position to engage in a meaningful response. Just so you know.

(**) The report of the encounter with Alexander has been questioned, and the encounter was of no particular significance anyway. But Candragupta (known to the Greco-Roman world as Sandracottus) and Seleucus I definitely met in a war which resulted in Seleucus ceding the Greek possessions in greater India in return for a huge number of war elephants he then used to defeat most of his Greek competitors for Alexander's empire. One of the things I have learned over the past few years is just how closely linked the ancient world actually was.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 1 out of 5]

#এক্কেবারে পাতে দেওয়ার যোগ্য নয়, gimmik আর hype-এর ডানায় ভর দিয়ে ভেসে থাকা ওভাররেটেড বইয়ের তালিকা :

রোমিলা থাপরের জগৎ, এক অদ্ভুত জগত, যেখানে ইতিহাস মানে একটা রাজনৈতিক হাতিয়ার। আর সেই জগতের প্রবেশদ্বার—Romila Thapar-এর 'Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas' (1961)!! এই বই পড়ে মনে হয়, এটা ইতিহাস নয়, এ মার্ক্সবাদী নাট্যমঞ্চ।

১. একটি দূরদর্শী সম্রাটকে ছোট করে দেখা: Ashoka কে এক flawed bureaucrat বানিয়ে দেওয়া: Romila Thapar বললেন,“Ashoka wasn't a great unifier or visionary. He was just a conflicted king reacting to a power vacuum.” মানে? এটা সেইরকম বোঝানো, যেন ঈশ্বরচন্দ্র বিদ্যাসাগর কেবল বাংলার এক স্কুল ইন্সপেক্টর ছিলেন। অর্থাৎ ব্যক্তিত্বকে ideological lens দিয়ে কেটে ছেঁটে ন্যাংটো করে ফেলা।

Thapar ব্যাখ্যা করেন Ashoka-র ধর্মপরায়ণতা, শান্তিবাদ, এবং সামাজিক উদারতাকে মূলত রাজনৈতিক কৌশল হিসেবে। তিনি প্রচার করেন—এ সবই নাকি “ধর্ম-রাষ্ট্রের একটা soft power initiative”।

২. Buddhism-এর গুরুত্ব? না, বরং রাজনৈতিক ডিপ্লোম্যাসি: Thapar বারবার দেখাতে চান, “Ashoka’s embrace of Buddhism wasn't spiritual—it was statecraft.” অর্থাৎ ধর্মীয় আদর্শ নয়, এটা power consolidation-এর চেষ্টা। এটা সেইরকম কথা, “বুদ্ধ ধর্ম বলো বা মোক্ষের পথে দীক্ষা—সবই ছিল দরবারী কূটনীতি।” আচ্ছা, একেই তো বলে 'ধর্মীয় অভিজ্ঞতাকে' কমিউনিস্ট ব্ল্যাকবোর্ডে টুকে দেওয়া।

৩. Decline of the Mauryas – কেবল বুর্জোয়া লুটের ফল?: Maurya সাম্রাজ্যের পতনের কারণ ব্যাখ্যা করতে গিয়ে Thapar যা করেন, তা একরকম Marxist dramaturgy:

ক)Social inequality
খ) Landlordism
গ) Decentralization

সবকিছু Marx-এর ভাষায় ব্যাখ্যা করে ফেলেন।

রাজনীতি, সংস্কৃতি, কল্পনা, বিশ্বাস—সব ঘেঁটে তিনি বানান একটা একমাত্রিক ব্যাখ্যা।

এত একপাক্ষিক হলে তো রাধার পায়ের নূপুরও রাওয়ালপিন্ডির ষড়যন্ত্র মনে হবে!

৪. India as a Construct, Not a Civilization?: Romila Thapar প্রায় সব লেখাতেই বারবার বলেন—India wasn’t a unified civilizational entity. It was an abstract political idea that didn’t really exist before the British.

ইল্লি নাকি? ভারতীয় সভ্যতা ছিল না? শুধু কতগুলো রাজ্য ছিল যাদের মগজে ছিল না ঐক্য, না জাতীয়তা? এই ধারণা একেবারে textbook level poison—যা ইতিহাসকে identity erasure-এর হাতিয়ার বানায়।

৫. লেখার ভাষা ও উপস্থাপন – scholarly, but suspiciously selective: Thapar scholarly তো বটেই। কিন্তু তার scholarship হল sieve-এর মতো— যা পড়ে নেয় তা হল economic determinism, আর ফেলে দেয় যা আত্মিক, ধর্মীয়, সাংস্কৃতিক অভিজ্ঞতা। এবং যে জিনিসগুলো ভারতবর্ষকে এক করে—spiritual legacy, dharmic unification, geographic consciousness—ওগুলো তাঁর ইতিহাসের ছেঁকুনিতে আটকে যায়।

শেষের কথা: এই বই Ashoka-কে নয়, Marx-কে মহিমা দেয়!! এটা ইতিহাসের বই নয়, এটা ঐতিহাসিক সেজে ভারতবর্ষকে ন্যাড়া করার প্রক্রিয়া।
“Ashoka-কে শান্তির প্রতীক না বানিয়ে, এক depressed civil servant বানানো হয়েছে। আর Maurya পতনকে বানানো হয়েছে Marx-এর case study।”

তবে এটাও বলবো, যদি কেউ পড়ে এই বই, তা হোক counter-reading-এর সঙ্গে—যেমন Radhakumud Mukherjee, R.C. Majumdar, বা S.L. Bhyrappa-র দৃষ্টিভঙ্গি দিয়ে।

[Ozymandias · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ashoka was the greatest king of the Maurya dynasty in ancient India. India is a bit of a blank spot in English historiography, surprisingly so since the region was occupied by Britain for over a century and they did the first serious scholarship on it. But since they left English scholarship has dried up (embarrassment?) while it is difficult to get a handle on Indian scholarship without diving deep into the original languages. The majority of books that get translated into English seem to be of the (complete rubbish) Hindu nationalist type, and while these are certainly popular within India I know for a fact that there are also a lot of serious scholars out there. They’re just not getting translated. So if you want to get a feel for Ancient India you have to turn back to the 1960s when respected historians like Romilla Thapar were still able to reach a broad English-language audience. The book has been updated since then, but only in an afterword and the original text remains largely that of the 1961 edition. You just have to take what you can get.

The coverage of the book is somewhat unexpected, although it wasn’t obvious until near the end. From the title you assume this is a biography of Ashoka and his time. This is in fact the core focus, but not the overall one. Only the second and fifth chapter are focused on Ashoka specifically. This is expected to a degree – biographies of ancient figures (even kings) are too short on private details to truly capture their subject’s character so they usually tell of their reign instead and something of their intents and motivations. But even by those standards the focus is odd – Ashoka is dead by the end of chapter five and the final two chapters cover the Mauryan decline and fall. Not what you expect in a biography. This book then is more of a look at the Mauryan Empire than any one king. Yet this isn’t quite true – we get only limited detail about the beginning of the empire and Chandragupta’s founding of the dynasty. So it’s a sort of 50/50 thing – half biography, half dynastic history. I think it would have been better as one or the other. My personal preference (given the limited data) would be for it to have served as a guide to the Maurya rather than just one king. It’s halfway there already.

One thing I’ve come to appreciate (if that’s the right word) about Indian history it’s that every assertion is dubious and needs qualifying. The need to constantly refer to rival interpretations is historiographicaly sound, it’s just massively confusing. I like source analysis much as the next guy, but you have to build on something. Introductory texts are notoriously light on source criticism and scholarly debate, and for good reason: the purpose of an introductory text is to, well, introduce you to a period. You take in a lot of disputed facts as truth to build yourself a picture of how the society works and only when this general sense is firm do you start looking into and questioning how you know. Without that sense of understanding beneath your reading it’s all just a blur of names and facts. A said this, but B said that, and Scholar 65 suggested we need to take this figuratively. A foundation made of sand. This book does the best it can, but it has to be admitted that it is not necessarily aimed at the absolute beginner. There is only a barebones discussion of Chandragupta and the founding of the Maurya dynasty and knowledge of Buddhism/Brahmanism (or Hinduism) is pretty much taken for granted. You may want to check out her other book, Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300 to get some background on what’s going on here.

Because of the lack of historical material (we have literally no Indian sources from Ashoka’s time apart from his rock edicts and maybe part of a book written down 500 years later) the book relies a lot on a few specific sources. There is also much use of comparative material. Some of this is useful. Megasthenes is the only contemporary who wrote about Mauryan India and so a look at his preconceptions and views is naturally vital. But the other main figures are Constantine and Charlemagne. My problem with this isn’t so much that they are bad choices for comparison but that this reflects an outdated approach to history. Constantine the Great and Charlemagne (Charles the Great) were chosen because they were both “Greats” and therefore have much in common with Ashoka the Great. This is in keeping with the Great Man school of thought which holds that history is just an account of great men. Great Men are assumed to shape the course of their societies and determine the path their civilization follows. This was a popular view in Victorian times and was just beginning to crumble entirely at the time this book was written. Now Thapar is not ignorant of the problems with this view. In fact, she has a sophisticated understanding of how far an individual can change society at all. As she sees it, Great Men become titans of their age not by opposing historical trends but by embodying them. Nonetheless, I feel it is still entirely the wrong question to ask and that better conclusions might be drawn from the study of cultures and society. For example, as in Ashoka’s rock edicts, the Romans banned social organizations wherever they could because they feared a rival source of power arising. This seems a much more reasonable source of comparison than Charlemagne banning the Saxon’s freedom of assembly after their conquest.

If Constantine must be the comparison there are better examples to be found. As near as I can tell, all of her references come from two biographies: Richard Winston’s Charlemagne (1954) and Jacob Burckhardt’s The Age of Constantine the Great (1853). The latter in particular is vastly outdated. Looking to the original sources or then-current scholarship might have yielded more compelling results. Many of Constantine’s laws were written in a moralizing tone not dissimilar to Ashoka’s. For example:

License is granted to no person, indeed, contrary to good morals, to appropriate the property of the living or to divide such property.

The language of laws like this is preachy and pedantic in the extreme, but we know from other sources that Constantine did not always comport himself in a moral manner – most notably when he had his wife and son executed, which happened less than a year before this law was issued. Hypocrisy is hardly a modern curse. Examples like this serve as a useful check on how seriously we should take pronouncements like this. I see no reason to doubt either man believed in what they said, but while laws and edicts may express ideals they do not reflect the full reality. Ashoka promoted his vision with far more regularity and passion, which may suggest a more sincere conviction than Constantine whose theology was always a little spotty and who was more interested in God’s role as bringer of victory anyway, but it seems likely that Ashoka was just as capable of violating his stated principles when it suited him. Autocrats are like that, and studies of political autocracy in general might help. If comparisons must be made, Theodosius I is an interesting one. He ordered the audience of a chariot race massacred but when confronted by St. Ambrose of Milan he repented and submitted to public penance for his act. If seeking historical parallels for Ashoka’s behavior this seems the place to start. One has to wonder whether any Buddhist monks served as Ambrose to Ashoka’s Theodosius.

The book itself is relatively short at just over 200 pages, but it is followed by a string of appendices and, most importantly, an afterword. Rather than alter what was in the book to bring it up to date with modern scholarship, this edition chose to put a wide-ranging discussion of post-publication discoveries in the field at the end. Reading this it is quite clear that a new biography of Ashoka is badly needed and that it would be very different from this one which is based almost solely on textual evidence. There is fifty pages(!) of material here and that merely represents a summary of what others had found. A detailed archaeological survey which could tell us more about Ashoka’s time and the environment he found himself it would form the core of any new book on the Maurya. So far as I know none exists in English.

You’re not exactly overwhelmed with choices when it comes to books on the Maurya, so that alone means that this book is probably worth reading. Despite some of my equivocating this book does do a lot to explore what Mauryan society was like and what Ashoka’s goals were. I never doubted the author’s scholarship or obvious good sense. On the whole the book did a good job of outlining what I have always found to be a murky era.

[Salil · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Ashoka and the Decline of the Mauryas" by Romila Thapar is outstanding work of historical analysis & interpretation. She has dissected the available evidence on the subject with a clinical precision not seen in the study of humanities. That she has also been able to add an element of thrill and suspense in her narration, is also unparalleled. Its a MUST READ book.

[Waqar Ahmed · Rating 4 out of 5]

My second and last book in the Maurya empire series. Before reading this title, I had finished Chandragupta Maurya and his times by RK Mokehrjee.

Asoka and the decline of the Mauryas by Romila Thapar is a detailed look at the Maurya empire and especially Asoka's reign over entire India. The book is divided into different chapters on the Mauryan empire and how Asoka ran it with an insightful look into economics, governance and the policy of dhamma.

Thapar concludes the book by placing a portion of the blame for the decline of the Maurya empire on Asoka. She writes that it was due to Asoka's caste-based policy's which resulted in the Maurya empire being thrown off by the Shunga empire.

I believe that the two books which I have read on the Maurya empire have greatly increased my understanding of the Indian region and has provided me with more reasons to understand and love history.

[Mayank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Authoritative text on Ashoka

After reading this book it remains no mystery why Romila Thapar is counted amongst foremost historians of ancient India. It is a scholarly work on demystifying Ashoka as a ruler and a person, and also reconstructing Mauryan history during his reign.
Ashokan edicts form the backbone of Dr. Thapar's research for this book. These are suitably supported with textual and archeological evidences. Scientific approach is followed in the historical reconstruction that provides the account fair objectivity enabling it to largely stand up to multiple scrutinies in the 60 years following it's publication.
Other than the main body of work; prelude, afterword and appendix are most relevant and provide additional depth and understanding to the overall context.
It should also be highlighted that this book is a scholarly work dealing in detail with historiographical aspects of studying history, thus making it a difficult read for some enthusiasts who are not accustomed to serious commentaries on history. Therefore, a certain background understanding of early India, and specially of Nandas and Mauryas, will be helpful in this regard.
Overall it is a book par-excellence extremely interesting and thoroughly researched which was hard to put down till it was finished.

[kranthi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too academic

[Siddhartha Jain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this well researched book on Aśoka and his contributions during Mauryan Empire with subsequent decline. The book is written by famous historian Romila Thapar. The book is divided into 7 chapters which focuses on Background, Society, Economy, Policy of Dhamma, Internal Administration, Later Mauryas and Subsequent Decline. It has aptly differentiated Aśoka's personal life as a devotee of Buddhism and his public life as an emperor which got overlapped wrongly in other texts. Further his policy of Dhamma is beautifully anlayzed. Dhamma in early years acted as binding force for the public with its emphasis on tolerance and non-violence.

The author has also critically analyzed the Major and minor rock edicts issued by Aśoka, Arthashastra, Dipavamsha, Aśokavadana, Rajataringini, writings of Megasthenes, Huan Tsang , Fa Hein and others to come to conclusion that Mauryan period during rein of Aśoka had provided stability to society. This was possible through centralised administration, reasonable taxation, religious tolerance, and promotion of trade. Further its major causes of decline were weak rulers, overcentralised administration, forceful implementation of Dhamma policy. A must read book for those who want to understand rein of Aśoka and Mauryan Empire to the fullest.

My Ratings: 9.8/10

#booksconnectus

[Tosh Toshniwal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knowing researched history related to the extraordinary and important personalities of any nation, who can be appropriated or misappropriated for socio-political purposes, is necessary. This not only helps one to understand the past but gives a perspective for current. Distorted history when fed for politics and  to the young mind, with lack of interest in curiosity plus the practical constraints in life for an average citizen to find out alternative narrations, is corrupting the society. Since the subject of the book is an extraordinary Indian king, the risk above is contemporary and of much relevance in Indian context. The book is a wealth of knowledge to travel in distant past, know Asoka the man as a human being and as monarch. And in the process, to provoke the quest to question and probe many other ancient texts including the Hindu religious writings. Books like this must be read and somehow made more accessible.

[Anshul Dupare · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent work! Exemplary!! The author has done commendable research and awe-inspiring critical analysis of Mauryan and post-Mauryan era. It is one of a kind research of a time about which very less information is available and whatever is available is scattered. The author has my utmost respect for researching through all texts and accumulating them in one place and analyzing that era from all the perspectives.

[Nikhil Gulati · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really liked this book. It’s not meant for the average reader, mind you, but for the serious student of history. And for them, it really packs a punch. Romila Thapar does a great job of taking very fragmentary evidence and piecing together something coherent. She argues against rival theories and presents her own with clarity and cogency, and in the process presents a vivid portrait of a king who lived many many centuries ago.

[Gordhan Chaudhari · Rating 2 out of 5]

She had ignored many Buddhist and Sanskrit source regarding Ashok reign.

Selective writing ...

[TANNU · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good

[Anjali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not able to read

[Student · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is more about Ashoka than the decline of the Mauryas. If you can't get enough of Ashoka, you'll get a lot out of the book.

[Vikaskamble]

Is it possible to read a book online?

[Shishir Kumar]

good

[Rohan]

want to read it