King Ashoka: Polity, Equity and Tolerance

ICAS 12, Kyoto-Leiden, 24-27 August 2021

Links related to King Ashoka

King Ashoka (2020-05-10, 16:14:46)

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– WikipediaBibliotheca Polyglotta

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Notes on King Ashoka References

Koji Nakatogawa 2021/06/20

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• Part I is for beginners. Some items may seem too elementary. Nevertheless, one can still learn something new concerning how King Ashoka is taught students in North American junior high school or advanced classes in elementary schools. The contents of education for the kids of these ages are good examples to know how teachers present the stories on King Ashoka for the students to inherit to the fundamental strata of their own culture and history.
• Part 2 consists mainly of the items suitable for those intellectual people in any society, irrespective of cultural tradition belonging to the West, East, or others. They include, typically, those who went through general education in college.
• Part 3 includes advanced items. A graduate student majoring in philosophy, politics, history or economics may very well try to compose an expository article on King Ashoka. There may appear someone inspired to jump into current disputes on the meaning of ‘Dharma,’ the basis o King Asyoka’s governing. It continues to be a source of inspirations for a good government.

Part 1.

Study Aid (Elementary and Thoughts-Provocative)

Essential Questions on  Ashoka in Ancient India 

https://behindthecurtainsofhistory.weebly.com/uploads/4/4/1/1/44119839/ashoka_in_ancient_india.pdf

This is based on NCCS C3.

https://www.socialstudies.org/standards/c3

Videos on King Ashoka

https://youtu.be/Ed6UZtVTI64

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFuu2SzV0fQ  

A movie based on Jawaharlal Nehru’s Discovery of India:

Ashoka, Part-II Bharat Ek Kho | Episode-14 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gweJleaVTIc

• Please watch and read the English subtitle, starting from 35min 10sec to 49min 48sec. 
• It gives a simple summary of King Ashoka’s views on the polity based on social responsibility, brotherhood and fellow feeling, and righteous living. 

National Geographics 

Who was Ashoka?

• Upset with his violent conquests that killed hundreds of thousands, the Indian king Ashoka embraced Buddhism and treated his subjects humanely. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/ashoka

Part 2.

Nayanjot Lahiri

Ashoka in Ancient India

Harvard University Press, 2015

Kindle Edition
https://www.amazon.com/Ashoka-Ancient-India-Nayanjot-Lahiri/dp/0674057775

The King and Kalinga: An Excerpt from Ashoka in Ancient India

https://thewire.in/books/the-king-and-kalinga-an-excerpt-from-ashoka-in-ancient-india

Bruce Rich

To Uphold the World: The Economic Thought of Ashoka and Kautilya

Posted on 14 September 2018

https://brewminate.com/to-uphold-the-world-the-economic-thought-of-ashoka-and-kautilya/

The author emphasized viewpoint from economics.

Two more articles by the same author:

Ashoka in Our Time: The Question of  Dharma for a Globalized World

(Penguin/Random House/Viking 2017)
https://alohomorabooks.com/product/ashoka-in-our-time-the-question-of-dharma-for-a-globalized-world/  

https://www.eli.org/bios/bruce-rich

D. D. Kosambi 

The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India in Historical Outline

• Reading this, one can obtain an overview of the historical background of the age of King Ashoka.

The whole book is now available online.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0f8f/3379c1e402b859fd9c927a98fa3a2e199b2d.pdf?_ga=2.46420455.1730709277.1596843726-928351088.1588325123

– Kosambi uses dikaios as a translation of dhammaka on page 143.

• “ Equity is the principle beyond formal codified law and common law upon which both law and justice are supposedly based. This corresponds exactly to the early meaning of Dhamma and justifies Menander’s Greek translation dikaios for dhammaka. “ 
• On the Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription (mentioned above by Bruce Reich), the Classical Greek word eusebeia, not dikaios, is used for dhamma. 
• eusebeia means piety, reverence, or towards the gods, etc. 
• dikaios means righteous or just as an adjective,  righteous man or just man as a noun.

For detailed comparisons,
Discussions with Milanda and Nagasena is in Milinda Panha.
Milinda Panha – Wikipedia

The following is a somewhat readable translation.
For research purposes, one should refer to the online text database (see Part.3. below) at Olso University.

Ven. S. Dhammika

THE EDICTS OF KING ASHOKA

An English Rendering

The Wheel Publication No. 386/387
ISBN 955-24-0104-6
Published in 1993
BUDDHIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
KANDY SRI LANKA
Copyright 1993 Ven. S. Dhammika
DharmaNet Edition 1994

https://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/ashoka.html

This electronic edition is offered for free distribution
via DharmaNet by arrangement with the publisher. DharmaNet International
P.O. Box 4951, Berkeley CA 94704-4951

Part 3.

For Pari Texts and English translations, please refer to the home page of Pali Text Society.

Pali Text Society Home Page

There is a link to
NOTICE OF PASSING
K.R. Norman
(21 July 1925 – 05 November 2020),
written by Prof.Rupert Gethin.

Text database of Ashoka Edicts.
The Ashoka Project,  University of Oslo
https://www2.hf.uio.no/polyglotta/index.php?page=library&bid=14
https://www2.hf.uio.no/polyglotta/index.php?page=fulltext&vid=365&view=fulltext

Journal of Indian Philosophy (Journal Editor, Phyllis Granoff, Yale U.)

vol 32, nor 5 – 6, 2004. Special Volume, on Dharma ed. by Patrick Olivelle, Texas U.

• This Volume is a collection of papers on Dharma, written by prominent scholars.

Gethin_on_Gombrich_What_the_Buddha_Taught.pdf

R.Gethin’s review of R.Gombrich, what Buddha taught
https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/113851154/

A Newspaper article

A lesson in religious tolerance from ancient India

A lesson in religious tolerance from ancient India | Letters | The Guardian

• Amartya Sen quotes an edict on religious tolerance in chapter 10 of his book, Development as Freedom, Alfre A.Knopf, New York, 1999.