Ashoka Quotes

“Amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history, their majesties and graciousnesses and serenities and royal highnesses and the like, the name of Ashoka shines, and shines, almost alone, a star.”
― H.G. Wells

“The attitude toward the forest people forms an important caveat to Ashoka's espousal of the principle of nonviolence. The fact that the warning to the forest people appears in an inscription that deals with the evils of warfare and the replacement of the goal of military victory by that of dhammic victory suggests that the armed insur- gency of the forest people posed a major political challenge to the Maurya state, one that could not be ignored even by an otherwise pacifist emperor. The king who repents on the devastation of war, declares that he has abjured it, and urges his successors to do like- wise, brandishes his power in front of the forest people and warns them to fall in line if they want to avoid his wrath.”
― Upinder Singh, Political Violence in Ancient India

“Ashoka's political and moral philosophy, as he expressed it in his imperial inscriptions, initiated a tradition of religious tolerance, non-violent debate and a commitment to the idea of happiness which has animated Indian political philosophy ever since. But - and it's a big but - his benevolent empire scarcely outlived him. And that leaves us with the uncomfortable question of whether such high ideals can survive the realities of political power. Nevertheless, this was a ruler who really did change the way that his subjects and their successors thought.”
― Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects

“The statesman who turned civil administrators into religious propagandists, abolished hunting and jousts of arms, entrusted the fierce tribesmen on the North-West Frontier and in the wilds of the Deccan to the tender care of ‘superintendents of piety’ and did not rest till the sound of the kettle-drum was completely hushed and the only sound that was heard was that of moral teaching, certainly pursued a policy at which Chandragupta Maurya would have looked askance. Dark clouds were looming in the north-western horizon. India needed men of the calibre of Puru and Chandragupta to ensure her protection against the Yavana menace. She got a dreamer. Magadha after the Kaliṅga War frittered away her conquering energy in attempting a religious revolution, as Egypt did under the guidance of Ikhnaton. The result was politically disastrous as will be shown in the next section. Aśoka’s attempt to end war met with the same fate as the similar endeavour of President Wilson.25”
― Arvind Sharma , From Fire to Light: Rereading the Manusmriti

“The Gārgīsaṃhitā section of the Yuga Purāṇa assesses the damage caused by the invasion of Śakas (Scythians) as follows: caturbhāgaṃ tu śastreṇa nāśayiṣyanti prāṇinām/ śakāḥ śeṣaṃ hariṣyanti caturbhāgaṃ svakaṃ puraṃ. Vinaṣṭe śakarājye tu śūnyā pṛthvī bhaviṣyati. In other words, these wars of conquest reduced the population of north India by ‘one half, 25 per cent being killed and 25 per cent being enslaved and carried away’.27 The Yuga Purāṇa further informs us that during this period even women took to ploughing, presumably as a result of the decimation.28 Indian opinion at the time seemed to blame Aśoka’s pacifism for this disaster, for the same Gārgīsaṃhitā declares: ‘the fool established the so-called conquest of dharma’ (sthāpayiṣyati mohātmā vijayaṃ nāma dhārmikam),29 though it does not refer to Aśoka by name.
Even more telling is the fact that his favourite title ‘beloved of the gods’ (devānāmpiya) became a synonym for a ‘fool’ in classical Sanskrit.30
From this point of view, the fact that the famous praśasti or panegyric of Samudragupta by the Jaina Hariṣeṇa is inscribed on an Aśokan pillar is of more than mere archaeological interest. It may possess a historical dimension, as if the Hindu reaction had come full circle. An Indian empire had now once again emerged, after an earlier one had been virtually destroyed by the policies of Aśoka. It was now carving an account of its martial exploits on Aśoka’s pillar as if to say that is what emperors do, rather than converting arsenals into monasteries. Rama Shanker Tripathi notes that:
[W]ith his ideal of war and aggrandisement, Samudragupta was the very antithesis of Aśoka, who stood for peace and piety. The former’s achievements formed the subject of an elaborate panegyric by the court poet Hariṣeṇa, and, strangely enough, Samudragupta chose to leave a permanent record of sanguinary conquests by the side of the ethical exhortations of Aśoka on one of his pillars, now inside the fort of Allahabad.31”
― Arvind Sharma, From Fire to Light: Rereading the Manusmriti