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Ashoka: A mythical creation of British colonialists
Posted on May 15, 2010 by The Editors
The Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism are shattering many of the myths concocted by the British. Carbon-dating is destroying the old paradigms. The research on the history of South Asia is unearthing huge cavities in the so called Mauyrian dynasty. The gaps are so huge that the basis of the original research and the motives behind creating the time-line are being questioned by the highest echelons of South Asia history.
As investigative historians, many around the world are probing the nooks and crannies of historical archives. South Asian history is still being unraveled. Many knots are being solved. The cloak of Hindu scripture and British colonialist dogma has been lifted and the rays of sunshine are now displaying the true history of the land of the Indus and land of the Ganges.
The British simply jumped on the Max Muellers bandwagon to propogate the Aryan superiority over all other nations. The British, 3 men of whom was mainly responsible for creating the mythical figure "King Ashok". These three, Princep, Jones and the Lankan missionary, the architects of bringing back Sanskrit a dead language, they also pretty much created Hinduism as we know it today. Ashoka is the Central figure built to create this myth of a huge land mass under the control of one mythical ruler. Ashoka was a mythical character created by the British If there is no Ashokathe whole thing falls apart. many of the pillars preceded the date ascribed to Ashokasome of them even preceded Buddhaif he was real. Much has been written about the subject by Dr. Fleet.
Some of the vases with Buddhist teachings have been carbon dated and they precede "Ashoka".
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Full text of "Asoka Gaekwad Lectures"
The time-line for Ashoka is all wrong. New carbon dating evidence question the chronology of Buddha and Ashoka.
Traditionally, eastern Buddhists give the date of Buddhas death as 949 B.C. (with variants including 878 B.C. and 686 B.C.), while northern Buddhists gave 881 B.C., and the southern Buddhists provide 543 B.C. as the correct year. More recent scholarship began to settle on the year 486 B.C. or even 368 B.C., so many textbooks usually fudge the issue and say he was born around 500 B.C. All methods rely on lists of kings and councils recorded in the Buddhist tradition itself, tied into known history through the Mauryan Emperors Candragupta and Asoka.
Three Brits arrive in South Asia in the 18th centuryget some rudimentary knowledge of Pali and Sanskrit and within a few weeks of their arrival they conjure up Ashoka the greatest king that ever was!
For Hundreds of years no Bharati had ever mentioned Ashoka, nor written about him. All of a sudden three White men describe Ashoka and he now is represented on the Bharati flag, currency notes and what not.
A clear case of manufactured history
In order for Ashoka to existthere must be historical references to his ruleeither by historians of his time or Greek invaders who intermingled with the society, and impacted South Asia dramatically. The Hellenic influences were the genesis of the Gandhara Civilization. Amazingly the Greek, great historians from the Homer daysnever mention King Ashoka or any corruption of his name. Neither do any Bharati historians list Ashoka by name.
Historians are curious to find out where the connection between the mythical figure and Sir James Princeps narrative. There is no record of a Lankan priest describing anything to the British linguist.
It should be noted, however, that neither of the Chinese pilgrims, Fa-hien and Yuan Chwang, has described the inscriptions they had noticed as the inscriptions of Asoka. They generally describe them as belonging to, and recording the events of, earlier times.
Full text of "Asoka Gaekwad Lectures"
First Mr. Princep tried to pin Piyadasi on Buddhathen on other people. They finally settled on a new name which didnt existAshoka. Here is another excerpt which kind of uses the inscriptions to portray the territory. Of course it is a fact that all the inscriptions do not belong to a single datethey are all over the placeeven in China and Korea.
For a while, Prinsep thought that the Devanampiya Piyadasi of the inscriptions was actually Devanampiya Tissa of Lanka but he gave soon up the idea because there was no evidence of King Devanampiya Tissa having ruled those areas where the inscriptions were found. Of course soon after that, Prinsep and Turnour hit upon the correct identity of King Devanampiya Piyadasi in the inscriptions Ashoka
Of course there is a huge anomaly in the inscriptions also. None of the inscriptions mentions Buddha or Buddhism.
However, if you read the actual wording of the pillars of Asoka (I highly encourage it, they are short reads), the Buddha is never mentioned. The only thing mentioned remotely Buddhist is the word dharma.
The Minor Pillar Edicts 1 and 2 are also so obviously, even in translation, of a different style and subject, it is a wonder how they were ever classified with the others. The translator admits in the footnotes concerning the 2nd minor pillar: Allahabad version, date of issue not known.
From the same website we see evidence that the pillar supposedly erected at the Buddha birth place has some problems of provenance: As the centuries passed, both the language of the inscriptions and the sites themselves were lost. In the 14th-C Sultan Feroz Shah had two of the pillars transported to Delhi. Another was rediscovered and re-erected in 1896 in the Lumbini Garden, where it had first been erected in 254 BC, to mark the site of the birthplace of the Buddha.
Critical thinking indicates that something rediscoverd and re-erected in 1896″ is not the best historical source, and would tell us more about 1896 than what occurred 2000 years before.
The purity of those inscriptions is highly doubtful to begin with, such dealing with the problem of later forgeries. The work of the first modern translator of those inscriptions, working in the latter 1800′s is described here: Prinsep and others plunged into an intense effort to decipher these inscriptions. This was not an easy task. Many letters were worn away and some were obliterated by later inscriptions.
It gets worse: Asoka is tied up with the modern Hindu and Buddhist political self-image (totemism, again), so it is really no wonder no one approaches this critically:
Here is an excerpt that describes how Ashoka was transformed from ephemeral myth to some semblance of reality by three Britisherswho based their entire theory on two vague inscriptionshardly an overwhelming body of evidence.
Ashoka's First Rock inscription at Girnar. This is hardly "sanskrit".
The first breakthrough came in 1834. According to Prinsep, upon carefully comparing them [the Delhi, Allahabad and Lauriya Nandangarh inscriptions] with a view to finding any other words that might be common to them I was led to a most important discovery; namely that all three inscriptions were identically the same except for a few lines at the bottom which appear to bear a local import.
The next clue would come from the great Stupa at Sanchi near Bhopal. Prinsep had received drawings and copies of inscriptions found at Sanchi. These included some short inscriptions found on stone railings around the main shrine it were these apparently trivial fragments of rude writing [wrote Prinsep] that have led to even more important results than the other inscriptions. What followed was described by Prinsep in June 1837. While arranging and lithographing the numerous scraps of facsimiles [from the Sanchi stone railings], I was struck by their all ending in the same two letters.
Coupling their circumstance with their extreme brevity, which proved that they could not be fragments of a continuous text, it immediately occurred that they must record either obituary notices, or more probably the offerings and presents of votaries, as is known to be the present custom Of so and so the gift must then be the form of each brief sentence; [this] led to the speedy recognition of the word danam (gift), teaching me the very two letters d and n, most different from known forms.
Now that these inscriptions could be read, they still had to be understood. Prinsep a Sanskrit scholar himself along with a distinguished pundit set about the task. The language turned out to be one of the Prakrit languages, vernacular derivations of classical Sanskrit, which made translation a little difficult. But in a few weeks the translation of the Delhi no 1 was ready:
The question now was, who was this person Devanampiya Piyadasi?
Prinsep initially thought it could be the Buddha himself, for, so far as scholars then knew, no single Indian monarch had ruled over such a vast territory as was covered by the pillars and rock inscriptions. This explanation, however, had soon to be given up because the inscriptions referred to such and such year of my reign, and the Buddha had never been a monarch.
Unfortunately, wrote Prinsep, in all the Hindu genealogical tables with which I am acquainted, no prince can be discovered possessing this very remarkable name. The mystery was solved within a few short months, with information gleaned, not from archeological sites in India, but from distant Sri Lanka. George Turnour, a member of the Ceylon Civil Service, had taken upon himself the task of translating Sri Lankan Buddhist texts in Pali into English a rather daunting task, since no dictionaries then existed
and no teacher could be found capable of rendering them into English. Turnour persisted, however, and his work threw light not only on the history of Sri Lanka but also on the history of Buddhism in India. Around August 1837 while going through a major work of Pali Buddhist literature, the Dipowanso, he came across one passage, which read:
Two hundred and eighteen years after the beatitude of Buddha, was the inauguration of Piyadassi who, the grandson of Chandragupta, and own son of Bindusara, was at that time viceroy at Ujjayani.
So finally, the mystery was solved. King Devanampiya Piyadasi was none other than Ashoka, already known from the Sanskrit king lists as a descendent of Chandragupta Maurya and, from Himalayan Buddhist sources, as a patron of early Buddhism.
Now, his historicity was dramatically established. With the discovery of Ashoka as the righteous ruler of a vast empire, a glorious chapter in the history of India was thrown open. Of course, much work still remained to be done. More and more evidence would be found over the years confirming Ashoka as King Devanampiya Piyadasi but it would not be until 1915 that the matter was settled beyond all doubt when a rock edict referring to Ashoka explicitly as Ashoka was found in Maski in Raichur district in Karnataka.
However much of the evidence has now been refuted through carbon dating.
The early date for the reign of the Emperor Kanishka has been overthrown by the carbon dating of ancient Buddhist writing, and is no longer tenable. So the middle 100s A.D. is a more accurate timetable for those first Buddhist-inspired artifacts [from 'Dead Sea scrolls' may be missing link in Buddhism - Science - NZ Herald News
The oldest extant Buddhist writings we have are the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism, the Kharosti Scrolls. Currently housed at the British Library, these scrolls are 60 fragments of text written in the ancient Kharosti script on birch bark, and are the earliest known Buddhist writings. They were produced by monks in the Greco-Buddhist society around Gandhara (more on that later). They are dated as early as 130-250 A.D.
The Pali Canon, the mother of all Buddhist scriptures, is usually asserted be first-century B.C. in origin, reflecting hundreds of years of oral tradition. However, that claim is itself based on legend, and the manuscripts we have available are no older than the 18th or 19th centuries A.D., and the textual traditions of the different Buddhist countries represented by these manuscripts show much evidence of interweaving [www.palitext.com/subpages/lan_lite.htm]. The basic fact is, in the Pali Canon, there is a lack of historical dates or descriptions of the Buddha that would provide any historical context or clues. The Pali Canon mostly details teachings and rules for monks, not Buddha as a person.
Serious questions are being raised about the time-line of Buddha.
There was a Greek writer, Megasthenes, who lived for ten years, around 300 B.C., in the very heartland of where the Buddha had taught, and he makes no mention of Buddhism when describing the religious or social practices of India. There were also no sculptures or art that exist from B.C. that talk about Buddha.
New Delhi considers itself the successor state to Ashoka. This is the only figure that the bigots can find to justify the unity of the conglomeration of more than 570 states. The 80 year rule is considered the map of Greater India. The figure of Ashoka has a larger than life presence for the Hinduvata and New Delhi. Many extremist Hindus base their ideology on Ashoka and try to build a case that Ashokas empire should be resurrected as Akhand Bharat. Pakistani history is being hijacked by people outside the borders of Pakistan. Now scholars are questioning the existence of Ashoka and many others.
There is also little evidence for even assuming they were written B.C. It is a huge body of literature, with many obvious layers [there are texts within the canon either attributed to specific monks or related to an event post-dating the time of the Buddha or that can be shown to have been composed after that time [from www.buddhacommunity.org/scriptures.htm]. Which passages are the oldest, when were they written? Very hard to say. [Read some of the mind-numbing discussion of the issues related to dating the Pali Canon here. See a nice basic overview summary of the Canon here and a more in-depth summary, here
.]
Another basic problem is that if the lists of kings and masters are not accurate, then the chronology is totally thrown off. The variability of the chronologies accounts for the wide range in dates used traditionally by the various Buddhist schools. In fact, it is not until the time of the commentaries of Buddhaghosa, Dhammapala, and others that is to say, the fifth to sixth centuries A.D. that we can know anything definite about the actual contents of this canon, according to the leading expert in Pali Canon studies, Dr. Gregory Schopen. The Truth Shall Set You Free: Historicity of the Buddha (part 2): the Lack of Evidence
For centuries historians have been trying to establish the chronology of early India. The question of whether Chandragupta can be identified with the figure known in Western texts as Sandrokottas is an important element in fixing the chronology. The philologist William Jones began the systematic study of the chronology in the late 18th century. His work and that of his contemporaries are still highly regarded.[4] However, even William Jones could not believe in the antiquity of the Bharata War since
Very little is known about the entire Maurya dynesty. For example little is known about Chandraguptas youth. Much of what is known about his youth is gathered from later classical Sanskrit literature, as well as classical Greek and Latin sources which refer to Chandragupta by the names Sandracottos or Andracottus. He was paragon for next rulers.
Dr. Naveed Tajammal has written some fascinating articles on Ashoka. He claims that Ashoka never existed and is simply a figment of the imagination of the Hinduvata who needed a figure to justify the myth that India belonged to the Hindus and on one else.
Dr. Naveed Tajammal, an American educated and trained scholar claims that:
James Princep was the first to coin the term "Ashoka" in 1837.Researching ancient Subcontinental, Greek and Chinese narratives, we find no record of Ashoka or many of the kings attributed to be alive at the time.
The Indologists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were reluctant to believe in the veracity of Indian history books or to accept the antiquity of Indian history. Arthur A. McDonnell
Dr. Jamil Khan describes it eloquently.
So Ashokan history perhaps was their own ego; Aryan glory from Biblical Japhet, son of Noah, Aryan brothers ( british included) thus stood out as real historical people, valiant, glorious,champion of non violence etc; this was the gteatest fraud but a real opium for illitereate chritian europe and still is for biblical faith fulls.
Most significant thing about asoka is the use of Arabic words ,Biddat, rah, Din ,malik,etc ( see my script ch) ~ 800 years before Islams advent; ( this was kept as secret);
The British position was Arabic came with Islamic invasion ( William Jones 1786) and is entirely different from Aryan-indo-european this was the basis for FUTURE Aryan-Hindu nation; This made sense to all believers in Noahs myth, even now it is the core of religious racism of Judeo-Chritisans faith.
Here lies the germ of Pakistan Aryan brother hood struggling against semitic Muslim rival; a noble struggle indeed; British were hailed as Aryan brothers liberators of India from semitic invaders; Ashoka thus is the greatest milestone for good/bad.
Early India wrote no history because it never made any. The ancient Indians never went through a struggle for life like the Greeks, the Persians and the Romans. Secondly, the Brahmanas early embraced the doctrine that all action and existence are a positive evil and could therefore have felt but little inclination to chronicle historical events.
Later scholars took this identity of Sandrokottas with Chandragupta Maurya as proven and carried on further research. James Princep, an employee of the East India Company, deciphered the Brahmi script and was supposedly able to read the inscriptions of Piyadassa. Turnour, another employee of the Company in Ceylon, found in the Ceylonese chronicles that Piyadassana was used as a surname of Asoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya. The inscription bearing the name of Asoka was not found till the time of Taimur. In 1838, Princep found five names of the Yona kings in Asokas inscriptions and identified them as the five Greek kings near Greece of the third century BC who were contemporary with Asoka
Almost all of the Ancient Greek works was lost because of the incidents like fire in the library of Alexandria and just because the mode of storing the knowledge was perishable. This is in stark contrast with much of ancient Indian work, which was in Sanskrit and had to memorized from one generation to the next. There was no contradiction in the works from different parts of the country. The works attributed to Strabo, etc. are translations from the later work in Arabic and hence a lot got mixed into the actual facts. To analyze linguistically based on that is more than a stretch.
Unanswered doubts
According to the Greek accounts, Xandrammes was deposed by Sandrokottas and Sandrocyptus was the son of Sandrokottas. In the case of Chandragupta Maurya, he had opposed Dhanananda of the Nanda dynasty and the name of his son was Bindusara. Both these names, Dhanananda and Bindusara, have no phonetic similarity with the names Xandrammes and Sandrocyptus of the Greek accounts.
In the Greek accounts, we find the statements of the Greek and Roman writers belonging to the period from 4th century BC to 2nd century AD None of them have mentioned the names of Kautilya or Asoka. Kautilyas work on polity is an important document of Indias mastery on this subject. It was with his assistance that Chandragupta had come to the throne. Asokas empire was bigger than that of Chandragupta and he had sent missionaries to the so-called Yavana countries. But both of them are not mentioned. Colebrook has pointed out that the Greek writers did not say anything about the Buddhist Bhikkus though that was the flourishing religion of that time with the royal patronage of Asoka. Roychaudhari also wonders why the Greek accounts are silent on Buddhism
Nanda Dynasty affiliation
Some Indian literary traditions connect him with the Nanda Dynasty of Magadha in eastern India. The Sanskrit drama Mudrarakashasa not only calls him Mauryaputra (Act II) but also a Nandanvaya (Act IV). Dhundiraja, a commentator of 18th century on Mudrarakshas states that Chandragupta was son of Maurya who in turn, was son of the Nanda king Sarvarthasiddhi by a wife named Mura, daughter of a Vrishala (shudra). Mudrarakshas especially uses terms like kula-hina and Vrishala for Chandraguptas lineage. This reinforces Justins contention that Chandragupta had a humble origin.[7][8] On the other hand, the same play describes the Nandas as of Prathita-kula i.e illustrious lineage. The commentator on the Vishnu Purana informs us that Chandragupta was son of a Nanda prince and a dasi (Hindi:maid), Mura. Pandit Kshmendra and Somadeva call him Purvananda-suta, son of genuine Nanda as opposed to Yoga-Nanda i.e pseudo Nanda.
Peacock-tamer theory
Other literary traditions imply that Chandragupta was raised by peacock-tamers (Sanskrit: Mayura-Poshakha), which earned him the Maurya epithet. Both the Buddhist as well as Jaina traditions testify to the supposed connection between the Moriya (Maurya) and Mora or Mayura (Peacock). While the Buddhist tradition describes him as the son of the chief of the Peacock clan (Moriya), the Jaina tradition on the other hand, refers to him as the maternal grandson of the headman of the village of peacock tamers (Moraposaga).[9] This view suggests a degraded background of Chandragupta. (The same Jain tradition also describes Nanda as the son of a barber by a courtesan).
According to some scholars, there are some monumental evidence connecting the Mauryas with peacocks. The pillar of Ashoka in Nandangarh bears on its bottom the figures of a peacock which is repeated in many sculptures of Ashoka at Sanchi.[10] According to Turnour,[11] Buddhist tradition also testifies to the connection between Moriya and Mora or Mayura or peacock. Aelian informs us that tame peacocks were kept in the parks of the Maurya palace at Pataliputra. But scholars like Foucher[12] do not regard these birds as a sort of canting badge for the dynasty of Mauryas. They prefer to imagine in them a possible allusion to the Mora Jataka. Moreover, besides the peacocks, there were also other birds like pheasants, parrots as well as a variety of fishes etc also kept in the parks and water pools of the Mauryas.
Moriya clan view
Silver punch mark coin of the Mauryan empire, with symbols of wheel and elephant. 3rd century BCE.
Yet there are other literary traditions according to which Chandragupta belonged to Moriyas, a Kshatriya (warrior) clan of a little ancient republic of Pippalivana located between Rummindei in the Nepalese Tarai and Kasia in the Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh. Tradition suggests that this clan was reduced to great straights in the 4th century BCE under Magadhan rule, and young Chandragupta grew up among the peacock-tamers, herdsmen and hunters.
The Buddhist text of the Mahavamsa calls Chandragupta a scion of the Khattya (Kshatriya) clan named Moriya (Maurya). Divyavadana[13] calls Bindusara, son of Chandragupta, an anointed Kshatriya, Kshatriya Murdhabhishikata, and in the same work, king Ashoka, son of Bindusara, is also styled a Kshatriya. The Mahaparinnibhana Sutta[14] of the Buddhist canon states that the Moriyas (Mauryas) belonged to the Kshatriya community of Pippalivana. These traditions, at least, indicate that Chandragupta may have come from a Kshatriya lineage.
The Mahavamshatika connects him with the Sakya clan of the Buddha, a clan which also claimed to belong to the race of Aditya i.e solar race.[15]
A medieval age inscription represents the Maurya clan as belonging to the solar race of Kshatriyas.[16] It is stated that the Maurya line sprang from Suryavamsi Mandhatri, son of prince Yuvanashva of the solar race. [17]
Alternate views on Maurya origin
As it can be noticed from above, there is no concrete evidence on Chandraguptas origin and all the above referred to theories are quite divergent. Therefore, additional views have been proposed by an alternative school of scholars.
North-western origin view
There is school of scholars like B.M. Barua, Dr J.W. McCrindle, Dr D.B. Spooner, Dr H.C. Seth, Dr Hari Ram Gupta, Dr Ranajit Pal and others who connect Chandragupta (Sandrokottos) to the north-western frontiers.
B.M. Barua calls him a man of Uttarapatha or Gandhara if not exactly of Taksashila.[18]
Based on Plutarchs evidence, Dr J.W. McCrindle and Dr H. R. Gupta write that Chandragupta Maurya was a Punjabi and belonged to the Ashvaka (Assakenoi) territory.[19]
Appian of Alexandria (95CE-165CE), author of a Roman History attests that Antrokottos (Chandragupta), the king of the Indians, dwelt on river Indus.[20] This reference also seems to indicate that Chandragupta belonged to north-west rather than East India.
These scholars relate Sandrocottos (or Androcottos) with Sisicottos of the Classical writings. Sisicottos was the ruler of Paropamisos (Hindukush) who had helped Bessus of Bactria against Alexander but later co-operated with the latter throughout the Sogdian campaigns.[21] During Alexanders campaign of Kabol and Swat valleys, prince Sisicottos had rendered great service to Alexander in reducing several principalities of the Ashvakas. During war of rock-fort of Aornos, where Alexander faced stiff resistance from the tribals, Sisicottos was put in command of this fort of great strategical importance. Arrian calls Sisicottos the governor of Assakenois. It is however not quite clear if this Sisicottos was same as Sandrocottos or if they were brothers or else they were related in someway.
Dr J. W. McCrindle and Dr H. R. Gupta think that they both possibly belonged two different branches of the Ashvakas.[22] Meri was probably another political centre of the Mor or Meros people. It is asserted by scholars of this school that the name Moriya or Maurya comes from the Mor (Modern name Koh-i-Mor i.e Mor hillthe ancient Meros of the classical writings) located in the Paropamisadae region between river Kunar and Swat in the land of Ashvakas (q.v.). It is pointed out that since Chandragupta Maurya belonged to Mor (Meros of classical writings) hence he was called Moriya or Maurya after his motherland.[23][24]
It is notable that Adiparva of Mahabharata (verses 1/67/13-14) also seem to connect Maurya Ashoka with the Ashvakas.[25]
Dr Spooner observes: After Alexanders death, when Chandragupta marched on Magadha, it was with largely the Persian army (Shaka-Yavana-Kamboja-Parasika-Bahlika) that he won the throne of India. The testimony of the Mudrarakshasa is explicit on this point, and we have no reason to doubt its accuracy in matter of this kind.[26] Thus, Dr Spooners comments also point to the north-western origin of the Mauryas.
It is however interesting to see that the scholars also identify the Ashvakas as a branch of the Kambojas. They were so-called since they were specialised in horse-profession and their services as cavalrymen were frequently requisitioned in ancient wars.
Calcuttas intellectual life received a great boost in 1784 with the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal by Sir William Jones, with the encouragement of Warren Hastings, himself no mean Oriental scholar. Jones worked closely with the pandits of the Kalighat Temple, together with the local ulema, in translating and producing new editions of rare and forgotten texts. His study of Sanskrit with Pandit Ramlochan at Nadiya led him to posit the existence of the Indo-European family of languages. Many distinguished scholars, English and Bengali,such as Henry Thomas Colebrooke, James Prinsep and Pandit Radhakanta Sarman would grace the Societys meetings and publications over the following century, vastly enriching knowledge of Indias culture and past
Scythian origin view
A Jat writer B.S.Dehiya published a paper titled The Mauryas: Their Identity[27] in 1979 and a book titled Jats the Ancient rulers[28] in 1982, wherein he concludes that the Mauryas were the Muras or rather Mors and were jatt of Scythian or Indo-Scythian origin. It is claimed that the Jatts still have Maur or Maud as one of their clan name.[29]
The Rajputana Gazetteer describes the Moris (Mauryas?) as a Rajput clan.[30]
Posted on May 15, 2010 by The Editors
The Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism are shattering many of the myths concocted by the British. Carbon-dating is destroying the old paradigms. The research on the history of South Asia is unearthing huge cavities in the so called Mauyrian dynasty. The gaps are so huge that the basis of the original research and the motives behind creating the time-line are being questioned by the highest echelons of South Asia history.
As investigative historians, many around the world are probing the nooks and crannies of historical archives. South Asian history is still being unraveled. Many knots are being solved. The cloak of Hindu scripture and British colonialist dogma has been lifted and the rays of sunshine are now displaying the true history of the land of the Indus and land of the Ganges.
The British simply jumped on the Max Muellers bandwagon to propogate the Aryan superiority over all other nations. The British, 3 men of whom was mainly responsible for creating the mythical figure "King Ashok". These three, Princep, Jones and the Lankan missionary, the architects of bringing back Sanskrit a dead language, they also pretty much created Hinduism as we know it today. Ashoka is the Central figure built to create this myth of a huge land mass under the control of one mythical ruler. Ashoka was a mythical character created by the British If there is no Ashokathe whole thing falls apart. many of the pillars preceded the date ascribed to Ashokasome of them even preceded Buddhaif he was real. Much has been written about the subject by Dr. Fleet.
Some of the vases with Buddhist teachings have been carbon dated and they precede "Ashoka".
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Full text of "Asoka Gaekwad Lectures"
The time-line for Ashoka is all wrong. New carbon dating evidence question the chronology of Buddha and Ashoka.
Traditionally, eastern Buddhists give the date of Buddhas death as 949 B.C. (with variants including 878 B.C. and 686 B.C.), while northern Buddhists gave 881 B.C., and the southern Buddhists provide 543 B.C. as the correct year. More recent scholarship began to settle on the year 486 B.C. or even 368 B.C., so many textbooks usually fudge the issue and say he was born around 500 B.C. All methods rely on lists of kings and councils recorded in the Buddhist tradition itself, tied into known history through the Mauryan Emperors Candragupta and Asoka.
Three Brits arrive in South Asia in the 18th centuryget some rudimentary knowledge of Pali and Sanskrit and within a few weeks of their arrival they conjure up Ashoka the greatest king that ever was!
For Hundreds of years no Bharati had ever mentioned Ashoka, nor written about him. All of a sudden three White men describe Ashoka and he now is represented on the Bharati flag, currency notes and what not.
A clear case of manufactured history
In order for Ashoka to existthere must be historical references to his ruleeither by historians of his time or Greek invaders who intermingled with the society, and impacted South Asia dramatically. The Hellenic influences were the genesis of the Gandhara Civilization. Amazingly the Greek, great historians from the Homer daysnever mention King Ashoka or any corruption of his name. Neither do any Bharati historians list Ashoka by name.
Historians are curious to find out where the connection between the mythical figure and Sir James Princeps narrative. There is no record of a Lankan priest describing anything to the British linguist.
It should be noted, however, that neither of the Chinese pilgrims, Fa-hien and Yuan Chwang, has described the inscriptions they had noticed as the inscriptions of Asoka. They generally describe them as belonging to, and recording the events of, earlier times.
Full text of "Asoka Gaekwad Lectures"
First Mr. Princep tried to pin Piyadasi on Buddhathen on other people. They finally settled on a new name which didnt existAshoka. Here is another excerpt which kind of uses the inscriptions to portray the territory. Of course it is a fact that all the inscriptions do not belong to a single datethey are all over the placeeven in China and Korea.
For a while, Prinsep thought that the Devanampiya Piyadasi of the inscriptions was actually Devanampiya Tissa of Lanka but he gave soon up the idea because there was no evidence of King Devanampiya Tissa having ruled those areas where the inscriptions were found. Of course soon after that, Prinsep and Turnour hit upon the correct identity of King Devanampiya Piyadasi in the inscriptions Ashoka
Of course there is a huge anomaly in the inscriptions also. None of the inscriptions mentions Buddha or Buddhism.
However, if you read the actual wording of the pillars of Asoka (I highly encourage it, they are short reads), the Buddha is never mentioned. The only thing mentioned remotely Buddhist is the word dharma.
The Minor Pillar Edicts 1 and 2 are also so obviously, even in translation, of a different style and subject, it is a wonder how they were ever classified with the others. The translator admits in the footnotes concerning the 2nd minor pillar: Allahabad version, date of issue not known.
From the same website we see evidence that the pillar supposedly erected at the Buddha birth place has some problems of provenance: As the centuries passed, both the language of the inscriptions and the sites themselves were lost. In the 14th-C Sultan Feroz Shah had two of the pillars transported to Delhi. Another was rediscovered and re-erected in 1896 in the Lumbini Garden, where it had first been erected in 254 BC, to mark the site of the birthplace of the Buddha.
Critical thinking indicates that something rediscoverd and re-erected in 1896″ is not the best historical source, and would tell us more about 1896 than what occurred 2000 years before.
The purity of those inscriptions is highly doubtful to begin with, such dealing with the problem of later forgeries. The work of the first modern translator of those inscriptions, working in the latter 1800′s is described here: Prinsep and others plunged into an intense effort to decipher these inscriptions. This was not an easy task. Many letters were worn away and some were obliterated by later inscriptions.
It gets worse: Asoka is tied up with the modern Hindu and Buddhist political self-image (totemism, again), so it is really no wonder no one approaches this critically:
Here is an excerpt that describes how Ashoka was transformed from ephemeral myth to some semblance of reality by three Britisherswho based their entire theory on two vague inscriptionshardly an overwhelming body of evidence.
The first breakthrough came in 1834. According to Prinsep, upon carefully comparing them [the Delhi, Allahabad and Lauriya Nandangarh inscriptions] with a view to finding any other words that might be common to them I was led to a most important discovery; namely that all three inscriptions were identically the same except for a few lines at the bottom which appear to bear a local import.
The next clue would come from the great Stupa at Sanchi near Bhopal. Prinsep had received drawings and copies of inscriptions found at Sanchi. These included some short inscriptions found on stone railings around the main shrine it were these apparently trivial fragments of rude writing [wrote Prinsep] that have led to even more important results than the other inscriptions. What followed was described by Prinsep in June 1837. While arranging and lithographing the numerous scraps of facsimiles [from the Sanchi stone railings], I was struck by their all ending in the same two letters.
Coupling their circumstance with their extreme brevity, which proved that they could not be fragments of a continuous text, it immediately occurred that they must record either obituary notices, or more probably the offerings and presents of votaries, as is known to be the present custom Of so and so the gift must then be the form of each brief sentence; [this] led to the speedy recognition of the word danam (gift), teaching me the very two letters d and n, most different from known forms.
Now that these inscriptions could be read, they still had to be understood. Prinsep a Sanskrit scholar himself along with a distinguished pundit set about the task. The language turned out to be one of the Prakrit languages, vernacular derivations of classical Sanskrit, which made translation a little difficult. But in a few weeks the translation of the Delhi no 1 was ready:
The question now was, who was this person Devanampiya Piyadasi?
Prinsep initially thought it could be the Buddha himself, for, so far as scholars then knew, no single Indian monarch had ruled over such a vast territory as was covered by the pillars and rock inscriptions. This explanation, however, had soon to be given up because the inscriptions referred to such and such year of my reign, and the Buddha had never been a monarch.
Unfortunately, wrote Prinsep, in all the Hindu genealogical tables with which I am acquainted, no prince can be discovered possessing this very remarkable name. The mystery was solved within a few short months
, with information gleaned, not from archeological sites in India, but from distant Sri Lanka. George Turnour, a member of the Ceylon Civil Service, had taken upon himself the task of translating Sri Lankan Buddhist texts in Pali into English a rather daunting task, since no dictionaries then existed
and no teacher could be found capable of rendering them into English. Turnour persisted, however, and his work threw light not only on the history of Sri Lanka but also on the history of Buddhism in India. Around August 1837 while going through a major work of Pali Buddhist literature, the Dipowanso, he came across one passage, which read:Two hundred and eighteen years after the beatitude of Buddha, was the inauguration of Piyadassi who, the grandson of Chandragupta, and own son of Bindusara, was at that time viceroy at Ujjayani.
So finally, the mystery was solved. King Devanampiya Piyadasi was none other than Ashoka, already known from the Sanskrit king lists as a descendent of Chandragupta Maurya and, from Himalayan Buddhist sources, as a patron of early Buddhism.
Now, his historicity was dramatically established. With the discovery of Ashoka as the righteous ruler of a vast empire, a glorious chapter in the history of India was thrown open. Of course, much work still remained to be done. More and more evidence would be found over the years confirming Ashoka as King Devanampiya Piyadasi but it would not be until 1915 that the matter was settled beyond all doubt when a rock edict referring to Ashoka explicitly as Ashoka was found in Maski in Raichur district in Karnataka.
However much of the evidence has now been refuted through carbon dating.
The early date for the reign of the Emperor Kanishka has been overthrown by the carbon dating of ancient Buddhist writing, and is no longer tenable. So the middle 100s A.D. is a more accurate timetable for those first Buddhist-inspired artifacts [from 'Dead Sea scrolls' may be missing link in Buddhism - Science - NZ Herald News
The oldest extant Buddhist writings we have are the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls of Buddhism, the Kharosti Scrolls. Currently housed at the British Library, these scrolls are 60 fragments of text written in the ancient Kharosti script on birch bark, and are the earliest known Buddhist writings. They were produced by monks in the Greco-Buddhist society around Gandhara (more on that later). They are dated as early as 130-250 A.D.
The Pali Canon, the mother of all Buddhist scriptures, is usually asserted be first-century B.C. in origin, reflecting hundreds of years of oral tradition. However, that claim is itself based on legend, and the manuscripts we have available are no older than the 18th or 19th centuries A.D., and the textual traditions of the different Buddhist countries represented by these manuscripts show much evidence of interweaving [www.palitext.com/subpages/lan_lite.htm]. The basic fact is, in the Pali Canon, there is a lack of historical dates or descriptions of the Buddha that would provide any historical context or clues. The Pali Canon mostly details teachings and rules for monks, not Buddha as a person.
Serious questions are being raised about the time-line of Buddha.
There was a Greek writer, Megasthenes, who lived for ten years, around 300 B.C., in the very heartland of where the Buddha had taught, and he makes no mention of Buddhism when describing the religious or social practices of India. There were also no sculptures or art that exist from B.C. that talk about Buddha.
New Delhi considers itself the successor state to Ashoka. This is the only figure that the bigots can find to justify the unity of the conglomeration of more than 570 states. The 80 year rule is considered the map of Greater India. The figure of Ashoka has a larger than life presence for the Hinduvata and New Delhi. Many extremist Hindus base their ideology on Ashoka and try to build a case that Ashokas empire should be resurrected as Akhand Bharat. Pakistani history is being hijacked by people outside the borders of Pakistan. Now scholars are questioning the existence of Ashoka and many others.
There is also little evidence for even assuming they were written B.C. It is a huge body of literature, with many obvious layers [there are texts within the canon either attributed to specific monks or related to an event post-dating the time of the Buddha or that can be shown to have been composed after that time [from www.buddhacommunity.org/scriptures.htm]. Which passages are the oldest, when were they written? Very hard to say. [Read some of the mind-numbing discussion of the issues related to dating the Pali Canon here. See a nice basic overview summary of the Canon here and a more in-depth summary, here
.]
Another basic problem is that if the lists of kings and masters are not accurate, then the chronology is totally thrown off. The variability of the chronologies accounts for the wide range in dates used traditionally by the various Buddhist schools. In fact, it is not until the time of the commentaries of Buddhaghosa, Dhammapala, and others that is to say, the fifth to sixth centuries A.D. that we can know anything definite about the actual contents of this canon, according to the leading expert in Pali Canon studies, Dr. Gregory Schopen. The Truth Shall Set You Free: Historicity of the Buddha (part 2): the Lack of Evidence
For centuries historians have been trying to establish the chronology of early India. The question of whether Chandragupta can be identified with the figure known in Western texts as Sandrokottas is an important element in fixing the chronology. The philologist William Jones began the systematic study of the chronology in the late 18th century. His work and that of his contemporaries are still highly regarded.[4] However, even William Jones could not believe in the antiquity of the Bharata War since
Very little is known about the entire Maurya dynesty. For example little is known about Chandraguptas youth. Much of what is known about his youth is gathered from later classical Sanskrit literature, as well as classical Greek and Latin sources which refer to Chandragupta by the names Sandracottos or Andracottus. He was paragon for next rulers.
Dr. Naveed Tajammal has written some fascinating articles on Ashoka. He claims that Ashoka never existed and is simply a figment of the imagination of the Hinduvata who needed a figure to justify the myth that India belonged to the Hindus and on one else.
Dr. Naveed Tajammal, an American educated and trained scholar claims that:
James Princep was the first to coin the term "Ashoka" in 1837.Researching ancient Subcontinental, Greek and Chinese narratives, we find no record of Ashoka or many of the kings attributed to be alive at the time.
The Indologists of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were reluctant to believe in the veracity of Indian history books or to accept the antiquity of Indian history. Arthur A. McDonnell
Dr. Jamil Khan describes it eloquently.
So Ashokan history perhaps was their own ego; Aryan glory from Biblical Japhet, son of Noah, Aryan brothers ( british included) thus stood out as real historical people, valiant, glorious,champion of non violence etc; this was the gteatest fraud but a real opium for illitereate chritian europe and still is for biblical faith fulls.
Most significant thing about asoka is the use of Arabic words ,Biddat, rah, Din ,malik,etc ( see my script ch) ~ 800 years before Islams advent; ( this was kept as secret);
The British position was Arabic came with Islamic invasion ( William Jones 1786) and is entirely different from Aryan-indo-european this was the basis for FUTURE Aryan-Hindu nation; This made sense to all believers in Noahs myth, even now it is the core of religious racism of Judeo-Chritisans faith.
Here lies the germ of Pakistan Aryan brother hood struggling against semitic Muslim rival; a noble struggle indeed; British were hailed as Aryan brothers liberators of India from semitic invaders; Ashoka thus is the greatest milestone for good/bad.
Early India wrote no history because it never made any. The ancient Indians never went through a struggle for life like the Greeks, the Persians and the Romans. Secondly, the Brahmanas early embraced the doctrine that all action and existence are a positive evil and could therefore have felt but little inclination to chronicle historical events.
Later scholars took this identity of Sandrokottas with Chandragupta Maurya as proven and carried on further research. James Princep, an employee of the East India Company, deciphered the Brahmi script and was supposedly able to read the inscriptions of Piyadassa.
Turnour, another employee of the Company in Ceylon, found in the Ceylonese chronicles that Piyadassana was used as a surname of Asoka, the grandson of Chandragupta Maurya. The inscription bearing the name of Asoka was not found till the time of Taimur. In 1838, Princep found five names of the Yona kings in Asokas inscriptions and identified them as the five Greek kings near Greece of the third century BC who were contemporary with AsokaAlmost all of the Ancient Greek works was lost because of the incidents like fire in the library of Alexandria and just because the mode of storing the knowledge was perishable. This is in stark contrast with much of ancient Indian work, which was in Sanskrit and had to memorized from one generation to the next. There was no contradiction in the works from different parts of the country. The works attributed to Strabo, etc. are translations from the later work in Arabic and hence a lot got mixed into the actual facts. To analyze linguistically based on that is more than a stretch.
Unanswered doubts
According to the Greek accounts, Xandrammes was deposed by Sandrokottas and Sandrocyptus was the son of Sandrokottas. In the case of Chandragupta Maurya, he had opposed Dhanananda of the Nanda dynasty and the name of his son was Bindusara. Both these names, Dhanananda and Bindusara, have no phonetic similarity with the names Xandrammes and Sandrocyptus of the Greek accounts.
In the Greek accounts, we find the statements of the Greek and Roman writers belonging to the period from 4th century BC to 2nd century AD None of them have mentioned the names of Kautilya or Asoka. Kautilyas work on polity is an important document of Indias mastery on this subject. It was with his assistance that Chandragupta had come to the throne. Asokas empire was bigger than that of Chandragupta and he had sent missionaries to the so-called Yavana countries. But both of them are not mentioned. Colebrook has pointed out that the Greek writers did not say anything about the Buddhist Bhikkus though that was the flourishing religion of that time with the royal patronage of Asoka. Roychaudhari also wonders why the Greek accounts are silent on Buddhism
Nanda Dynasty affiliation
Some Indian literary traditions connect him with the Nanda Dynasty of Magadha in eastern India. The Sanskrit drama Mudrarakashasa not only calls him Mauryaputra (Act II) but also a Nandanvaya (Act IV). Dhundiraja, a commentator of 18th century on Mudrarakshas states that Chandragupta was son of Maurya who in turn, was son of the Nanda king Sarvarthasiddhi by a wife named Mura, daughter of a Vrishala (shudra). Mudrarakshas especially uses terms like kula-hina and Vrishala for Chandraguptas lineage. This reinforces Justins contention that Chandragupta had a humble origin.[7][8] On the other hand, the same play describes the Nandas as of Prathita-kula i.e illustrious lineage. The commentator on the Vishnu Purana informs us that Chandragupta was son of a Nanda prince and a dasi (Hindi:maid), Mura. Pandit Kshmendra and Somadeva call him Purvananda-suta, son of genuine Nanda as opposed to Yoga-Nanda i.e pseudo Nanda.
Peacock-tamer theory
Other literary traditions imply that Chandragupta was raised by peacock-tamers (Sanskrit: Mayura-Poshakha), which earned him the Maurya epithet. Both the Buddhist as well as Jaina traditions testify to the supposed connection between the Moriya (Maurya) and Mora or Mayura (Peacock). While the Buddhist tradition describes him as the son of the chief of the Peacock clan (Moriya), the Jaina tradition on the other hand, refers to him as the maternal grandson of the headman of the village of peacock tamers (Moraposaga).[9] This view suggests a degraded background of Chandragupta. (The same Jain tradition also describes Nanda as the son of a barber by a courtesan).
According to some scholars, there are some monumental evidence connecting the Mauryas with peacocks. The pillar of Ashoka in Nandangarh bears on its bottom the figures of a peacock which is repeated in many sculptures of Ashoka at Sanchi.[10] According to Turnour,[11] Buddhist tradition also testifies to the connection between Moriya and Mora or Mayura or peacock. Aelian informs us that tame peacocks were kept in the parks of the Maurya palace at Pataliputra. But scholars like Foucher[12] do not regard these birds as a sort of canting badge for the dynasty of Mauryas. They prefer to imagine in them a possible allusion to the Mora Jataka. Moreover, besides the peacocks, there were also other birds like pheasants, parrots as well as a variety of fishes etc also kept in the parks and water pools of the Mauryas.
Moriya clan view
Silver punch mark coin of the Mauryan empire, with symbols of wheel and elephant. 3rd century BCE.
Yet there are other literary traditions according to which Chandragupta belonged to Moriyas, a Kshatriya (warrior) clan of a little ancient republic of Pippalivana located between Rummindei in the Nepalese Tarai and Kasia in the Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh. Tradition suggests that this clan was reduced to great straights in the 4th century BCE under Magadhan rule, and young Chandragupta grew up among the peacock-tamers, herdsmen and hunters.
The Buddhist text of the Mahavamsa calls Chandragupta a scion of the Khattya (Kshatriya) clan named Moriya (Maurya). Divyavadana[13] calls Bindusara, son of Chandragupta, an anointed Kshatriya, Kshatriya Murdhabhishikata, and in the same work, king Ashoka, son of Bindusara, is also styled a Kshatriya. The Mahaparinnibhana Sutta[14] of the Buddhist canon states that the Moriyas (Mauryas) belonged to the Kshatriya community of Pippalivana. These traditions, at least, indicate that Chandragupta may have come from a Kshatriya lineage.
The Mahavamshatika connects him with the Sakya clan of the Buddha, a clan which also claimed to belong to the race of Aditya i.e solar race.[15]
A medieval age inscription represents the Maurya clan as belonging to the solar race of Kshatriyas.[16] It is stated that the Maurya line sprang from Suryavamsi Mandhatri, son of prince Yuvanashva of the solar race. [17]
Alternate views on Maurya origin
As it can be noticed from above, there is no concrete evidence on Chandraguptas origin and all the above referred to theories are quite divergent. Therefore, additional views have been proposed by an alternative school of scholars.
North-western origin view
There is school of scholars like B.M. Barua, Dr J.W. McCrindle, Dr D.B. Spooner, Dr H.C. Seth, Dr Hari Ram Gupta, Dr Ranajit Pal and others who connect Chandragupta (Sandrokottos) to the north-western frontiers.
B.M. Barua calls him a man of Uttarapatha or Gandhara if not exactly of Taksashila.[18]
Based on Plutarchs evidence, Dr J.W. McCrindle and Dr H. R. Gupta write that Chandragupta Maurya was a Punjabi and belonged to the Ashvaka (Assakenoi) territory.[19]
Appian of Alexandria (95CE-165CE), author of a Roman History attests that Antrokottos (Chandragupta), the king of the Indians, dwelt on river Indus.[20] This reference also seems to indicate that Chandragupta belonged to north-west rather than East India.
These scholars relate Sandrocottos (or Androcottos) with Sisicottos of the Classical writings. Sisicottos was the ruler of Paropamisos (Hindukush) who had helped Bessus of Bactria against Alexander but later co-operated with the latter throughout the Sogdian campaigns.[21] During Alexanders campaign of Kabol and Swat valleys, prince Sisicottos had rendered great service to Alexander in reducing several principalities of the Ashvakas. During war of rock-fort of Aornos, where Alexander faced stiff resistance from the tribals, Sisicottos was put in command of this fort of great strategical importance. Arrian calls Sisicottos the governor of Assakenois. It is however not quite clear if this Sisicottos was same as Sandrocottos or if they were brothers or else they were related in someway.
Dr J. W. McCrindle and Dr H. R. Gupta think that they both possibly belonged two different branches of the Ashvakas.[22] Meri was probably another political centre of the Mor or Meros people. It is asserted by scholars of this school that the name Moriya or Maurya comes from the Mor (Modern name Koh-i-Mor i.e Mor hillthe ancient Meros of the classical writings) located in the Paropamisadae region between river Kunar and Swat in the land of Ashvakas (q.v.). It is pointed out that since Chandragupta Maurya belonged to Mor (Meros of classical writings) hence he was called Moriya or Maurya after his motherland.[23][24]
It is notable that Adiparva of Mahabharata (verses 1/67/13-14) also seem to connect Maurya Ashoka with the Ashvakas.[25]
Dr Spooner observes: After Alexanders death, when Chandragupta marched on Magadha, it was with largely the Persian army (Shaka-Yavana-Kamboja-Parasika-Bahlika) that he won the throne of India. The testimony of the Mudrarakshasa is explicit on this point, and we have no reason to doubt its accuracy in matter of this kind.[26] Thus, Dr Spooners comments also point to the north-western origin of the Mauryas.
It is however interesting to see that the scholars also identify the Ashvakas as a branch of the Kambojas. They were so-called since they were specialised in horse-profession and their services as cavalrymen were frequently requisitioned in ancient wars.
Calcuttas intellectual life received a great boost in 1784 with the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal by Sir William Jones, with the encouragement of Warren Hastings, himself no mean Oriental scholar. Jones worked closely with the pandits of the Kalighat Temple, together with the local ulema, in translating and producing new editions of rare and forgotten texts. His study of Sanskrit with Pandit Ramlochan at Nadiya led him to posit the existence of the Indo-European family of languages. Many distinguished scholars, English and Bengali,such as Henry Thomas Colebrooke, James Prinsep and Pandit Radhakanta Sarman would grace the Societys meetings and publications over the following century, vastly enriching knowledge of Indias culture and past
Scythian origin view
A Jat writer B.S.Dehiya published a paper titled The Mauryas: Their Identity[27] in 1979 and a book titled Jats the Ancient rulers[28] in 1982, wherein he concludes that the Mauryas were the Muras or rather Mors and were jatt of Scythian or Indo-Scythian origin. It is claimed that the Jatts still have Maur or Maud as one of their clan name.[29]
The Rajputana Gazetteer describes the Moris (Mauryas?) as a Rajput clan.[30]
