Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor (25 page)

But Hodgson’s long romance with Asia was not yet over. Unable to settle ‘at home’, after less than a year he returned to India, with a young wife, to continue his researches. Forbidden to re-enter Nepal, he found the next best thing to Kathmandu at the sanatorium of Darjeeling. Here he settled down in the estate he named ‘Brianstone’, now concentrating his efforts on ethnology, until the declining health of his wife finally persuaded him to quit India for good in 1858. Despite his immense contribution to Indian studies, zoology, botany and other sciences, Hodgson never received any public recognition from his own government, and it was not until 1889 that he was belatedly awarded an honorary doctorate from Oxford. Despite his donations of hundreds of Sanskrit manuscripts and thousands of drawings to the EICo’s Library, the Bodleian Library, the Royal Asiatic Society, the Natural History Museum, the Zoological Society, the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew and other learned bodies in Britain, it seems his countrymen never
forgave Hodgson for his gifts to French scholarship and his acceptance of the Légion d’Honneur.

Brian Houghton Hodgson some years after he returned to England in 1858. A portrait painted by Louis Starr-Canziani at an unknown date, possibly showing Houghton in his old Indian Political Service uniform – but without the button of his Legion d’Honneur. (National Portrait Gallery)

Eugène Burnouf’s
Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi
, published posthumously in 1852, was dedicated to Hodgson as ‘founder of the study of Buddhism’, and with good reason. Burnouf showed that there were two traditions and chronologies within the Buddhist world: a Northern
Mahayana
, or ‘Great Vehicle’, tradition recorded chiefly in Sanskrit and a Southern
Theravada
, or ‘Vehicle of the Elders’, tradition set down in Pali. Within the Northern tradition there were conflicting dates regarding the
dating of the ‘Great Final Extinguishing’ of Sakyamuni Buddha, ranging from 949
BCE
(China, Japan and Korea) to 881
BCE
(Tibet and Nepal), with Ashoka anointed ruler a century after his death. Within the Southern tradition (chiefly Ceylon, Siam and Burma) there was no such disagreement, it being agreed that Sakyamuni’s death had occurred in the year 544
BCE
and that Ashoka Maurya had been anointed as ruler 218 years after that death, thus 326
BCE
. Burnouf argued that even this date was too early and a consensus was gradually reached among Indologists that Sakyamuni Buddha had probably died in about 486
BCE
and that Ashoka had begun his rule not 218 years later but 118 years, so about 268
BCE
.

Thanks to Hodgson, Burnouf was also the first Westerner to have access to a Sanskrit text known as the
Divyavadana
, or ‘Divine Stories’, made up of thirty-eight
avadanas
, or morality tales, about the lives of Buddhist saints. One of these was the
Ashokavadana
, or ‘Legend of King Ashoka’, being an account of the life and death of Emperor Ashoka set out in almost ten thousand verses.

Hitherto the Western world’s nascent understanding of Ashoka and his times had come from two main sources: the Ashokan Rock and Pillar Edicts, and George Turnour’s translation of the
Great Dynastic Chronicle –
the latter representing Buddhist history as interpreted within the Southern tradition. The Theravadin compilers of the
Great Dynastic Chronicle
had made much of Ashoka as patron and propagator of Buddhism and as father of two of their local heroes, Mahinda and Sanghamitta. They had also stressed the dominant role of the proto-Theravadin elder Moggaliputta Tissa in guiding Ashoka, sending missionaries to Lanka and elsewhere and managing the Third Buddhist Council.

The
Legend of King Ashoka
, as revealed by Burnouf, took a very different line. This was a text that belonged to the Mahayana school, which had its origins in the split that came to a head at about the time of the Third Buddhist Council. Initially, both schools preserved by oral transmission the teachings of the Buddha spoken in the Prakrit tongue in the form of the
Tripitaka
or ‘Three Baskets’. These Buddhist scriptures were first set down in writing in about the first century CE with both traditions using the same Brahmi script, but whereas the southern Buddhists stuck with Pali the northerners abandoned it in favour of the more refined religious language of the Brahmans, Sanskrit.
³

The
Legend of King Ashoka
was therefore set down in Sanskrit and its portrayal of Ashoka is very different from that given in the
Great Dynastic Chronicle
or as revealed in Ashoka’s edicts. It makes no reference to the great slaughter at Kalinga or to Ashoka’s subsequent remorse and conversion. It has nothing to say about the Third Buddhist Council or the split in the Buddhist Church. There is no mention of the Buddhist elder Moggaliputta Tissa and it is entirely silent on the subject of the propagation of Buddhism abroad. Instead, its focus is on the leading roles played by the elders of its own school in controlling the initial violence of Ashoka and redirecting him to work for the Buddhist Church. The emperor’s conversion is now ascribed not to the words of his nephew Nigrodha but to a saintly monk named Samudra and his serenity under torture. In place of Moggaliputta Tissa the Buddhist centre-stage is now occupied by the elder Upagupta. It is Upagupta who advises Ashoka on all spiritual matters as his guide and mentor, and who organises Ashoka’s pilgrimage. As for Ashoka himself, the
Legend of King Ashoka
portrays him as a seriously flawed
individual, a cruel, hot-tempered oppressor until his conversion to Buddhism. The king’s transformation under Buddhist guidance is presented as a Buddhist morality tale, but one that provides some intriguing – although not necessarily reliable – insights into the private life of Ashoka and the seeming nightmare of his dotage and death.

The
Legend of King Ashoka
opens with a long account of Upagupta’s saintliness in a previous life before describing how Upagupta is reborn the son of a perfume seller of Mathura and ordained as a Buddhist monk. Only then does Ashoka come into the story, beginning with his previous existence as a boy who meets the Buddha, also in a previous life, on the road and makes him an offering of a handful of dirt – an action with profound karmic consequences. The Buddha accepts the offering and predicts how in consequence the boy will be reborn as Ashoka a hundred years after his own death.

The
Legend of King Ashoka
then lists the kings of Magadha but entirely omits Chandragupta, describing Bindusara simply as the son of Nanda. Ashoka’s mother is here named as Subhadrangi, the daughter of a Brahman of Champaran (in North Bihar). The jealousy of the women of the royal household keeps Subhadrangi away from King Bindusara so she trains as a barber. When she finally gets an opportunity to shave the king she explains she is a Brahman and tells her story, whereupon Bindusara makes her his chief queen. The first fruit of their union is named Ashoka, ‘without sorrow’, because by his birth his mother has emancipated herself from suffering. However, Bindusara rejects the boy because his skin is ‘rough and unpleasant to the touch’ – a direct consequence of his offering of dirt in his previous birth. Ashoka grows into an unruly youth and is handed over for disciplining to an
astrologer, who foretells that he will succeed his father to the throne. This displeases King Bindusara, who favours his eldest son Sushima. The city of Taxila then rebels against King Bindusara, who sees an opportunity to get rid of Ashoka and sends him to deal with it, allowing him an army but no weaponry. However, Ashoka is made welcome by the Taxilans and the rebellion is resolved. The prince then goes on to deal with disturbances in the country of Kashmir, where he wins the support of two powerful mountain warriors – possibly Greek local rulers or mercenaries.

Meanwhile in Pataliputra the heir-apparent Sushima angers his father’s (unnamed) chief minister by slapping his bald head in jest, causing the minister to reflect that when Sushima becomes king he will use his sword just as freely. The minister turns all the other ministers, including his own son Radhagupta, against Sushima and for Ashoka. The Taxilans rise in rebellion for a second time and on advice of his chief minister King Bindusara sends Sushima to deal with it. But then Bindusara falls seriously ill and orders Sushima’s recall, commanding Ashoka to go in his place. However, the king’s ministers delay the king’s order to Sushima and smear Ashoka’s body with red turmeric to make him appear too sick to travel. When it is clear that Bindusara is dying, Ashoka appears before him dressed in full royal regalia and calls on his father to make him temporary ruler. This makes Bindusara so apoplectic with rage that he vomits blood and dies.

As soon as he hears of his father’s death Sushima marches on Pataliputra. Ashoka deploys his two mountain warrior allies to guard two of the city’s gates, his ministerial supporter Radhagupta takes charge of a third gate and he himself takes on the defence of the fourth and eastern gate, where Sushima is lured
into a trap (given here and below in a modern translation by John Strong):

Radhagupta set up an artificial elephant, on top of which he placed an image of Ashoka that he had fashioned. All around he dug a ditch, filled it with live coals of acacia wood, covered it with reeds, and camouflaged the whole with dirt. He then went and taunted Susima: ‘If you are able to kill Ashoka, you will become king.’ Susima immediately rushed to the eastern gate, intending to do battle with his half-brother, but he fell into the ditch full of charcoal, and came to an untimely and painful end.
⁴

Once Ashoka has been consecrated as king of Magadha he reveals his true character. When his ministers challenge his order to cut down all fruit and flowering trees he beheads five hundred of their number, and when he learns that his concubines dislike caressing his rough skin he orders them to be burned alive. He also appoints as his executioner one Chandagirika, ‘the fierce mountaineer’, and builds a prison that is lovely to look at from the outside but contains all the tortures of hell. Chandagirika sets about inflicting the ‘five great agonies’ on all who enter its portals. But then a Buddhist novice monk named Samudra wanders into Ashoka’s ‘hell’ while begging for alms. Finding the monk impervious to his cruelty, Chandagirika reports this to the king, who comes to see for himself and is confounded by Samudra’s fortitude. Samudra then explains that he has been freed ‘from the terrors of
sam-sara’ –
the suffering involved in rebirth – thanks to the teachings of Sakyamuni Buddha and goes on to tell Ashoka the Buddha has prophesied that one hundred years after his
Great Final Extinguishing a mighty king named Ashoka will rule in the city of Pataliputra. The king will be a
Chakravartin
or ‘Wheel-turning Monarch’ who will follow the example of the Buddha’s turning of the wheel of the Dharma. He will also be a
Dharmaraja
or ‘Righteous King’ who will distribute the relics of the Buddha far and wide, building eighty-four thousand
Dharmarajikas
or ‘Righteous King’s monuments’ to contain them. That is what the Buddha has prophesied, says Samudra, ‘But instead your majesty has built this place that resembles a hell and where thousands of living beings have been killed.’

So moved is Ashoka by these words that he promises to fulfil Sakyamuni Buddha’s prophesy. He converts to Buddhism, destroys his hell prison and Chandagirika with it, and asks Upagupta to become his spiritual mentor, after which issues a proclamation declaring Buddhism to be the official religion of the country.

The reformed king then sets out to perform meritorious acts, including the building of eighty-four thousand ‘Righteous King’s monuments’, containing portions of the Buddha’s relics, throughout his empire. This he does with the help of an elder named Yashah, abbot of a monastery outside Pataliputra known as the Kukkutarama, or ‘Cock monastery’. At the request of the people of Taxila he causes three and a half thousand million stupas to be built in their country, and by his order the
yakshas
, or semi-deities, build ten million stupas along the subcontinent’s seashore. Upagupta then takes Ashoka on a pilgrimage to the holy places of Buddhism, beginning with Lumbini, where Ashoka makes an offering of a hundred thousand pieces of gold and builds a stupa. He repeats the process at Kapilavastu, Bodhgaya, Sarnath and at Kushinagara, where King Ashoka is so
overcome with motion that he faints and has to be revived by his attendants.

With this first pilgrimage to the holy places of Buddhism completed, Ashoka is then taken by Upagupta to visit the stupas of the great saints of Buddhism who have followed Sakyamuni Buddha. However, what particularly arouses the faith of the king is the Bodhi tree. When he returns to Bodhgaya to find that the Bodhi tree is dying, he again faints. He learns that the Bodhi tree has been cursed by an act of sorcery instigated by his chief queen, Tishyarakshita, who has been angered by the king’s forsaking of the old family religion. The queen realises her mistake, gets the curse lifted and waters the roots of the Bodhi tree with a thousand pitchers of milk a day until it revives, whereupon Ashoka proclaims: