Sanchi Stupa and Ashoka’s Edicts

Ever since my childhood in India, I have been exposed to a small set of specific images that are associated with the modern Republic of India. I saw them in my school social sciences textbooks, on the nation's currency, and in other venues such as public administrative offices and buildings. The Buddhist stupa at Sanchi along with Ashoka’s four lions pillar are a couple of such images that fall into this category.

Quite honestly, the true purpose and objective of the symbols for the modern Indian sovereign state were getting lost for me under their ubiquity and my tainted patriotic zeal of a young age, where raw emotions triumphed over objective rational thinking and limited understanding of history. On the other hand, simultaneously I harbored affinity and familiarity with the images because of their ubiquity.

Now, at my current age, I can look back and try to reinterpret the purpose and meaning of those images, after a little better understanding of history and humanity in the world and from the perspective of an outsider.

A quick search through the internet emphasizes these artifacts as historic cultural heritage icons of modern India. Though this is the case, I am not as fully satisfied with this explanation. It still does not explain why they are considered cultural heritage.

A short history of these objects is that they were built by Emporer Ashoka (304 BCE to 232 BCE) from the Maurya dynasty. Ashoka fought a bloody war in Kalinga, a kingdom in Eastern India, that roughly maps to the current state of Odisha. Ashoka was overwhelmed by the violence in that war. Subsequently, he embraced Buddhism and promoted it within his kingdom as well as in other places like Sri Lanka.

Emporer Ashoka’s actions are similar in this respect to the Roman Emporer Constantin embracing Christianity and promoting it within the Roman Empire to his subjects. The slight difference is that there is a gap of 600 years between the two events, with Emperor Ashoka’s actions preceding those of Emperor Constantine.

However, the similarities between the two phenomena pertain more to the religious aspects of the episodes. Moreover, subsequently, Buddhism did not fully establish itself in India like Christianity did in the Roman Empire.

What is more noteworthy about Ashoka is not so much that he promoted Buddhism per se, but what his intentions and expectations were of his subjects. Ashoka raised many pillars and carved his edicts on them and on rocks in many places across his kingdom. According to the Wikipedia article on Ashoka’s edicts, ‘ the edicts focus on social and moral precepts rather than specific religious practices or the philosophical dimension of Buddhism. …. The edicts were based on Ashoka's ideas on administration and behavior of people towards one another and religion.’

Indeed, Buddha, like Christ later, taught tolerance and nonviolence. But it is the emperor Ashoka, who actively encouraged and promoted good behavior through his position and power as the emperor. It is therefore no surprise that the political architects of the newly independent Indian Republic wanted to draw upon these values when they were thinking of the political and social system for their highly diversified country with self-governance.

One may hold different opinions about the feasibility and long-term sustainability of purely nonviolent social and political systems in the modern world. Human nature possesses both good and evil. History is riddled with violence through wars and battles. But that doesn’t stop one from trying to dream and espouse high ideals. Moreover, by choosing these objects and artifacts, the architects of the newly independent India rightfully drew attention to the fact that these values were being promoted in the land more than two thousand years ago. Indians should feel proud of that legacy of political governance.