A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD BY H. G. WELLS
29.KING ASOKA
For some generations after the death of Gautama, these high and noble Buddhist teachings, this first plain teaching that the highest good for man is the subjugation of self, made comparatively little headway in the world. Then they conquered the imagination of one of the greatest monarchs the world has ever seen.
We have already mentioned how Alexander the Great came down into India and fought with Porus upon the Indus. It is related by the Greek historians that a certain Chandragupta Maurya came into Alexander’s camp and tried to persuade him to go on to the Ganges and conquer all India. Alexander could not do this because of the refusal of his Macedonians to go further into what was for them an unknown world, and later on (303 B.C.) Chandragupta was able to secure the help or various hill tribes and realize his dream without Greek help. He built up an empire in North India and was presently (303 B.C.) able to attack Seleucus I in the Punjab and drive the last vestige of Greek power out of India. His son extended this new empire. His grandson, Asoka, the monarch of whom we now have to tell, found himself in 264 B.C. ruling from Afghanistan to Madras.
Asoka was at first disposed to follow the example of his father and
grandfather and complete the conquest of the Indian peninsula. He
invaded Kalinga (255 B.C.), a country on the east coast of Madras, he
was successful in his military operations and—alone among conquerors—he
was so disgusted by the cruelty and horror of war that he renounced it.
He would have no more of it. He adopted the peaceful doctrines of
Buddhism and declared that henceforth his conquests should be the
conquests of religion.
A LOHAN OR BUDDHIST APOSTLE (Tang Dynasty)
A LOHAN OR BUDDHIST APOSTLE (Tang Dynasty)
_(From the statue in the British Museum)_
His reign for eight-and-twenty years was one of the brightest
interludes in the troubled history of mankind. He organized a great
digging of wells in India and the planting of trees for shade. He
founded hospitals and public gardens and gardens for the growing of
medicinal herbs. He created a ministry for the care of the aborigines
and subject races of India. He made provision for the education of
women. He made vast benefactions to the Buddhist teaching orders, and
tried to stimulate them to a better and more energetic criticism of
their own accumulated literature. For corruptions and superstitious
accretions had accumulated very speedily upon the pure and simple
teaching of the great Indian master. Missionaries went from Asoka to
Kashmir, to Persia, to Ceylon and Alexandria.
TRANSOME SHOWING THE COURT OF ASOKA
TRANSOME SHOWING THE COURT OF ASOKA
_India Mus._
ASOKA PANEL FROM BHARHUT
ASOKA PANEL FROM BHARHUT
_India Mus._
Such was Asoka, greatest of kings. He was far in advance of his age.
He left no prince and no organization of men to carry on his work, and
within a century of his death the great days of his reign had become a
glorious memory in a shattered and decaying India. The priestly caste
of the Brahmins, the highest and most privileged caste in the Indian
social body, has always been opposed to the frank and open teaching of
Buddha. Gradually they undermined the Buddhist influence in the land.
The old monstrous gods, the innumerable cults of Hinduism, resumed
their sway. Caste became more rigorous and complicated. For long
centuries Buddhism and Brahminism flourished side by side, and then
slowly Buddhism decayed and Brahminism in a multitude of forms replaced
it. But beyond the confines of India and the realms of caste Buddhism
spread—until it had won China and Siam and Burma and Japan, countries
in which it is predominant to this day.
THE PILLAR OF LIONS
THE PILLAR OF LIONS
Capital of the Pillar (column lying on side) erected in Deer Park in
the time of Asoka, where Buddha preached his first sermon
_(From a print in the India Museum)_