“The so-called
inscriptions of Aśoka do not belong to Aśoka. Most of them do not make any
mention of Aśoka. If one or two mentions Aśoka they do not refer to Aśoka
Vardhana of the Maurya dynasty, but they refer to Samudragupta of the Gupta
dynasty who assumed the title of Aśokaditya.” – Pt. Kota Venkatachelam
Thus, no
satisfactory alternative explanation exists for the identification of
Devānāmpriya Priyadarśī. Is Devānāmpriya Priyadarśī really Aśoka Maurya then?
We can find out by comparing Devānāmpriya Priyadarśī known from his
inscriptions with Aśoka Maurya known from the literature. The information from
the inscriptions must match the information from the literature if both of them
were same.
The Conquest
of Kalinga:
According to
Rock edict 13, the conquest of Kalinga and the remorse from the ravages of war
were the most important events in the life of Devānāmpriya Priyadarśī, but
these events find no mention in the literature about Aśoka Maurya. The Kalinga
war was the turning point in the life of Devānāmpriya Priyadarśī. After the
Kalinga war Devānāmpriya Priyadarśī decided to change his ways and he accepted
Buddhism. But literary sources about Aśoka Maurya are totally silent about the
Kalinga war and even Basham, author of “The Wonder that was India”, has noted
it.
The Conversion
to Buddhism:
According to
Rock edict 13, the Kalinga war was the main factor behind the conversion of
Devānāmpriya Priyadarśī to Buddhism. However, according to Theravada tradition,
he was converted by a seven-year-old monk with no relation to the Kalinga war.
According to Fa-Hien, Aśoka was converted by a Buddhist monk, who was being
tortured by Aśoka , again with no relation to the Kalinga war. There is no
mention in literature that Aśoka Maurya converted to Buddhism due to the
Kalinga war.
3rd
Buddhist Council:
According to
literary sources, the Third Buddhist Council was held under the patronage of
Aśoka Maurya, but there is no mention of it in the edicts of Devānāmpriya
Priyadarśī. The absence is very glaring, as Devānāmpriya Priyadarśī describes
matters of far less significance in his edicts about what he has done to
promote Dharma.
Vegetarianism:
Aśoka was a
Jain before conversion to Buddhism (Rājataraṅgiṇī 1.101-102). Chandragupta
Maurya, grandfather of Aśoka Maurya, was a Jain who had spent the latter days
of his life serving the Jain saint Bhadrabahu. Aśoka’s grandson Samprati was
also a Jain. So if Aśoka’s grandfather was a devout Jain and his grandson
Samprati was a devout Jain, it is natural to assume that Aśoka Maurya was also
born a Jain. As Jains and Buddhists are both vegetarians, Aśoka was a vegetarian
before and after conversion to Buddhism. However, Devānāmpriya
Priyadarśī says in his edicts that before his conversion hundreds of thousands
of animals were killed daily in the royal kitchen. This is incompatible with
Aśoka always being a vegetarian, first as a Jain and then as a Buddhist.
Tolerance:
Aśoka, who is
considered an apostle of non-violence, was not so tolerant, even after his
conversion to Buddhism. According to Aśokavadana, once Ājīvikas made a painting
showing Buddha as subordinate to the founder of the Ājīvika sect. Aśoka was
enraged and he ordered all the Ājīvikas of Pundravardhana (North Bengal) to be
killed. Eighteen thousand Ājīvikas lost their lives in just one day.
Devānāmpriya Priyadarśī followed non-violence after his conversion to Buddhism
according to his inscriptions, and it would be out-of-character for him to have
ordered the massacre of Ājīvikas.
These
arguments show that the identification of Devānāmpriya Priyadarśī with Aśoka
Maurya is not as sacrosanct as the modern historians would make us believe. The
question then is, “who was Devānāmpriya Priyadarśī”? Is there any other
candidate for identification as Devānāmpriya Priyadarśī, who will fit the
available evidence better?
We can see
that Kalinga had a great maritime history and there were voyages to South East
Asia like Indonesia, Java, Bali and Sumatra. There is a annual fair named after
this tradition called Bali Yatra. Odia sailors also hade a great relationship
with the Philippines country. We can see that there is a province called “Kalinga”
in Philippines. There are also different places named similar to that in
Kalinga in the northern border of India where Alexander also not to dare to
cross sword with Gangridae [Kalinga]. You may see Katak, Puri , Konark in the
Northern border of India and surprisingly the XIII Rock Edict which is shouting of Kalinga war is not in modern
Odisha or in Modern India.
Therefore if there is a war in Philippines
in Kalingan province , then that should not be referred to Kalinga war in
Dhauli or in modern Odisha. Here in the picture where there is also a Vangala
just like in Modern Odisha neighborhood there is also Bengal[West Bengal]. People
here migrated to the north and settled there is a simple phenomena and in that
area the struggle is having its own Geographical problem. No doubt they are
related to their ancient place but the politics is different due to
geographical location.
XIII Rock Edict of Devanampiya neither gives
his name as Asoka nor clarify the war in any way as we have seen above. Minimum
requirement for a war inscription is regarding opposition leader name and the
reason of the war, which is purely missing in the XIIIth Edict. The place of
the Edict is also very suspicious for writing about the war which is Shabaz
Garhi in Modern Pakistan. Shahbaz Garhi is located 13 km east of Mardan(Pakistan)
on the road to Swabi town a dirt track to the right, a few meters, are the
Ashokan inscriptions, carved in two rocks on a hill about 300 meters to the
left. The Ashokan inscriptions date from the 3rd century BC and are the oldest
surviving writings of any historical significance in the Subcontinent. At
Shahbaz Garhi 12 edicts are carved on the rock, two on another, Shahbaz Garhi
is important to Buddhists because of its association with prince Sudana, or
Buddha in one of his previous incarnations, Sudana means of noble charity; the
area is still popularly known as the Sudana Plan.
The Great Scholar Dr. K.R.Norman in his
concluding remarks, said:- “ The Kings original orders were, therefore,
inscribed as they had been misread, miscopied and misinterpreted to a great or
less extent, by the various members of the secretariat. It must be our aim to
remove the faults which have crept on, and try to find out exactly what Asoka
said.”
Current study by Prof. Meena Talim remark
thus:- “I may point out here that such flaws were not only committed by the
members of the secretariat of the King Asoka but many a time, the words of
Asoka were not correctly interpreted by scholar community. ”
Recently when Dr.Meena Talim who is the
first person to be awarded a Ph.D in Pali found no such word like Kalinga Vaja
(Kalinga Vijaya) and vadhe (Badha) in XIII Rock Edict then she translated the
edict in Pali and Hindi. When I go through this I found the grammar is to be
read like thus:
In XIII Rock Edict at Shabazgarhi does not refer to Kalinga Vaja
[Kalinga Vijay], it was
an added or injected to justify Kalinga war for to satisfy mood
of the Edict.
In Pali (tatha paccha
adhuna laghesu kalingamahi tiboo dhamma),
In Odia (tata paschat
adhuna laguchhi kalingarehi dharma thiba).
In modern Odia (Taha(tata)
pare(paschat) Laguchhi Langhesu) Bartaman(adhuna) kalingarehi(kalingarehin) dharma(dharma) thiba(taboo).
One has to think that if Ashoka
had to mention Kalinga War why didn’t he do it in any of the 2 major Rock
Edicts of Dhauli and Jauguda in Odisha? We have also seen that Devanampriya and
Priyadarshi are common ancient Hindu and a Buddhist titles. Kumaragupta was
also called Devanampriya and Tissa was also called Devanampriya Tissa.
Satakarni was also called Priyadarshi.
At last a single reference of
Kalinga is not sufficient about a great war of so called devastation, it is
purely a misnomer and it is a political injection by Colonial writer for their
colonial thinking.
References:
Dr. Raja Rammohan Roy - India Facts
Swagatika Pati - Odisha Review/Odisha Views
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