Jawad abasi
4/12/12
History 100
King Asoka’s Understanding of Dhamma
King Asoka stories are so well known in Buddhist tribes that there is no need further
illustration about him in Buddhist orb. Many Buddhists have glamorized images of this king
that cannot possibly be historically correct. One-sided interpretations of any historical
event or person are looked upon seriously. While about King Asoka we only read positive
explanation, more likely to an extreme level, even from historians. According to this
resource http://www.livius.org/sh-si/shahbazgarhi/shahbazgarhi2.html it gives a
historical breakdown in which they try to scout the prospects that Asoka might have had
both positive and negative effects on the future life of Buddhists and that he might also was
not even a good amateur religious follower of the Buddhist Sangha.
We only have two kinds of sources to have confidence on trying to get idea of who King
Asoka was and what was his rank according to this http://www.culturalindia.net/indian-
history/ancient-india/ashoka.html resource. In the form of short description on rocks and
stone pillars, is the first historical evidences left behind by himself and the second
description is the fictional story and legends about him found in stories of all Buddhist
traditions. In attempting to appear as a perfect ruler, Asoka himself adjunct the former,
while Buddhists who overstated Asoka’s purity to fetch up Buddhism as a higher religion
then all others. They wrote the latter, we cannot believe in any of this antecedent
impartiality. However, to create determination of the king’s negative access on Buddhism
we just need to read his judgment with a little more detracting attention than we are used
to.
King Asoka’s Rank
“Dhamma values” was one of the most famous society build by Ashoka. According to this
resource http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/ashoka.html his pronouncement that he
described the word Dhamma as meaning, “proper behavior towards servants and
employees, respect for mother and father, generosity to friends, companions, relations,
Brahmans and ascetics, and not killing living beings”. In a word, he mentioned it as chastity.
None of the people could argue with the excellence of such honesty. But when the word
Dhamma comes to the Buddha’s teaching it means so much more. However, to Asoka
