Ashoka The Great Emperor of India
Every country has its idols and heroes which are source of inspiration for native population or through out the world. Ancient Indian history is full of glory and pride where we have great dynasties such as Mauryas, Guptas and Cholas etc. but unfortunately right after 1947 the true history of ancient Indian dynasties was not introduced to our education curriculum. What we all were taught in our school and universities was pretty much fabricated version of ancient Indian history.
Mauryan empire considered as the greatest and the most powerful empire of Indian history, Majority of historians agree with the same. However, the history of Mauryan dynasty which we study in our syllabus is distorted version of Mauryan history especially history of Ashoka the great.
A great monarch became victim of propaganda of religious zealots, Today both right and left leaned historians present distorted version of Ashoka’s history and events of his life. The left-wing historians and Buddhist writers take references from Buddhist texts such as Mahavamsa and Ashokavadana to convey their message that Emperor Ashoka was a devout Buddhist or Follower of teachings of Buddha.
On the other hand, the right winger also takes references from same Buddhist texts such as Mahavamsa and Ashokavadana to convey their message that Emperor Ashoka was radical follower of Buddhism and He was not great but a cruel king.
The truth is far away from what both right and left wingers tell to their followers. There is a famous book called “The Ocean of Churn” written by Sanjeev Sanyal, If we go through his book The Ocean of Churn especially chapter about Mauryan history than we can clearly see that book has not one but many mistakes in the information which he has given in his book. Regarding Ashoka’s history Sanjeev Sanyal also took references from Buddhist texts such as Mahavamsa and Ashokavadana, He did the same mistakes which left-wing historians do. Sanyal wrote in his book that Ashoka was not great because he killed his 99 brothers to seize imperial throne and Ashoka put 18,000 followers of Ajivkia sect to death in single episode.
Sanjeev Sanyal took these references from Buddhist texts without evaluating the credibility of Buddhist texts. Doing such major mistakes in his book raise question about Sanjeev Sanyal’s own credibility as writer and his negative intention towards Mauryan history.
Now let’s figure out what majority of the historians and writers wrote about Buddhist texts such as Mahavamsa and Ashokavadana. Historians and Writers such as Vincent Arthur Smith, Ramchandra Dikshitar, H. Kern and S.M. Edwardes had mentioned in their books that Buddhist texts Mahavamsa and Ashokavadana are not credible source of history , these texts were written to glorify Buddhism. Linking Emperor Ashoka with Buddhism was distinct advantage for Buddhism, at the time when Buddhism was losing popularity in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
Another interesting fact which majority of Indians don’t know is that Emperor Ashoka never converted to Buddhism, apart for Sinhalese Buddhist tales there are no solid evidence to prove Ashoka’s faith was Buddhism. Ashoka remained follower of Vedic religion till end of his days.
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