Ashoka

Chandragupta Maurya topples the Nanda kings and takes their capital on the Ganges.

570towers on its timber wall, says the Greek envoy Megasthenes

Greek and Indian histories

Seleucus, Alexander's successor in the east, gives up the lands below the Hindu Kush for peace.

500war elephants sent west in return

Greek histories

Ashoka is not the eldest son. He is sent to govern the frontier cities.

As the Buddhist chronicles tell it

After a fight over the succession, he is anointed king.

99 brotherskilled? A legend. His own edicts mention living brothers.

Chronicles, checked against Rock Edict V

His only recorded war. He gives the cost himself.

100,000slain, and 150,000 carried away

Ashoka's own words, Rock Edict XIII

This is the repentance of Devanampriya on account of his conquest of the Kalingyas.

The best conquest, the edict says, is conquest by dhamma.

Rock Edict XIII, translated by E. Hultzsch, 1925

Edicts go up on rocks along the trade roads, in each region's own speech.

14major rock edicts, from Kandahar to the Deccan

Rock Edicts II and V

Here his words are carved in Greek and Aramaic.

5Greek kings named in his edicts

Rock Edict XIII; Kandahar inscriptions

His son and daughter carry the teaching south, with a cutting of the Bodhi tree.

1sapling, still tended at Anuradhapura

As the Sri Lankan chronicles tell it

At the Buddha's birthplace he raises a polished pillar and cuts the village tax.

1/8of the harvest, down from the usual share

Lumbini pillar inscription

On the roads banyan-trees were caused to be planted by me.

Wells, mango groves and drinking places for cattle and people.

Pillar Edict VII, translated by E. Hultzsch, 1925

He dies around 232 BCE. Within centuries no one can read his script.

In 1837 James Prinsep cracks it, starting from one repeated word.

𑀤𑀸𑀦dāna, a gift

Asiatic Society of Bengal

His lion capital becomes the emblem of India. Its wheel sits on the flag.

24spokes

Constituent Assembly and Government of India