Ashoka turns toward peace

After a bloody conquest of Kalinga, the Mauryan emperor Ashoka is said to have been shaken by the suffering and turned toward Buddhism and nonviolence. He carved edicts on stone pillars across his realm.

Most of what we know comes from Ashoka's own edicts.

Context

Ashoka ruled the Mauryan Empire in the third century BCE, and the Kalinga war, on the east coast of India, is usually dated to around 261 BCE, roughly eight years after his coronation. The date is inferred from the edicts and from chronologies of Hellenistic rulers named in them, so it is approximate.

In Rock Edict XIII he describes remorse over the deaths and deportations in Kalinga. The numbers he gives, about 100,000 killed and 150,000 deported, come from his own inscription and may be rhetorical rather than precise counts.

Ashoka's inscriptions in Prakrit, and some in Greek and Aramaic, were carved on rocks and polished pillars across the subcontinent. They promote dhamma, an ethic of moral conduct, tolerance and welfare measures. Later Buddhist traditions describe his conversion in greater and more legendary detail, so historians rely most on the edicts themselves.

Ashoka's edicts were deciphered in the 1830s by James Prinsep, which allowed historians to connect the legendary king of Buddhist texts with the ruler named Piyadasi in inscriptions.