If you look at the flag of modern day India or the money changing hands between modern
day Indians you may be surprised to discover that they have a link to an Emperor that reigned
more than 2000 years ago.
This wheel and these lions are symbols of Ashoka the Great, a man that shares his title
with Alexander, Charlemagne, and K’inich….K’inich Janaab…...Pakal the Great.
But he isn’t remember for his glorious conquests but rather for turning to the path of peace
when violence probably would have served him better.
He is one of if not the only powerful ruler in world history that tried to conquer by
way of morality, and his giant stone pillars, once lost to the sands of time, but now raised
again from the Earth tell the story of a complicated man, once bloodthirsty and then tranquil.
A man that transformed Buddhism from a small philosophical sect into a global religion.
But could his entire legacy be made up?
Ancient propaganda still working today.
We’ll look at all of this and more on this double episode on the life and legacy of Ashoka
the Great.
Before Ashoka was his grandfather Chandragupta, a man that rose up from humble origins as
a shepherd and overthrew the Nanda Empire with the help of his tutor and advisor Chanakya.
He set up the Maurya Empire, which under his rule expanded over most of modern day India.
Chandragupta expanded in the territory that was only just recently conquered by Alexander
the Great and then solidified this conquest by defeating one of Alexander’s successor,
Seleucus, in war.
Having established one of the greatest empires in Asian and World history, Chandragupta decided
to renounce it all and spend the end of his life as a Jain monk, or so says the Jain legend.
His son Bindusara inherited an empire that stretched from Persia to Bengal and Bindusara
probably has one of history’s oddest origin stories.
According to Buddhist legend, one of Chandragupta’s wives was 7 days away from giving birth.
Alongside this event Chanakya had kindly been putting small amounts of poison in Chandragupta's
food.
So that he would develop a tolerance.
Chandragupta, unaware of this, shares some of his meal with his wife.
Just as she puts the food in her mouth Chanakya enters the room and sees the disaster taking
place.
Knowing that she would die Chanakya without missing a beat, chops off her head and performs
and emergency C-Section to save the heir.
Proving to the world that Chanakya is clearly the most metal advisor of all time.
Child in hand Chanakya notices that it needs a few more days of cooking and so he slaughters
a goat every day and places the child inside of it for 7 days.
The child is then “born” and named Bindusara the word for spotted because he was covered
in spots of goat’s blood.
Now that story is almost completely irrelevant to the tale at hand.
But I couldn’t let you continue to exist not knowing it.
Like many Indian Emperors and Goats, Bindusara, had many different kids with many different
women.
Among them was Ashoka.
We are told that his mother was not very high on the imperial food chain and so Ashoka,
one of the youngest of around 100 brothers, wasn’t paid any special attention.
The fact that he had a weird pumpkin head, a fiery temper, and some strange skin disease
didn’t warm his father much too him either.
But as a son of the Emperor he received a princely education and soon stood out amongst
his brothers.
Bindusara had no time for this exceptional son of his.
He had already decided that his son Sushima was to be his to be his heir and competition
was not welcome.
Ashoka was sent away to put down rebellions on the fringes of the Empire in order to keep
him away from court so he couldn’t build connections with an scheming ministers.
After excelling at crushing revolts, Ashoka was stationed as governor of Ujjain, far from
the Imperial Capital at Paliputra.
These efforts to stunt his son’s promise proved fruitless, as on Bindusara’s death
in 272 BC Ashoka rushed to the capital and seized the throne for himself and won the
support of his father’s ministers who found Sushima to be too disrespectful.
Sushima, deprived of his royal inheritance and disliked by the men that once served his
father soon faced the wrath of Ashoka.
He was burned alive in a pit of coals.
This may be myth, but what we know for certain is that a bloody civil war kicked off as Ashoka
slaughtered all remaining claimants to the throne in a violent 4 years of chaos.
His shrewdness and ruthlessness won him an Empire and he crowned himself in 269 BC.
All dissent was crushed, opposition swept aside, and rebels imprisoned all of which
earned him the name Ashoka the Fierce.
Even though he ruled the largest Empire in Indian history, Ashoka grew frustrated at
the existence of an independent kingdom just south of his capital, the Kingdom of Kalinga.
God, that's a fun name to say.
Kalinga was a prosperous state with far reaching trade connections, rich ports, and a strong
navy.
This alongside the fact that even his brilliant grandfather, Chandragupta, could not conquer
it, made Kalinga an irresistible prize for Ashoka the Fierce.
Soldiers were readied, spears sharpened, elephants captured and trained.
In the 9th year of his reign, 261 BC, the campaign commenced.
The Kalingans had a impressive army and offered stiff resistance, on the banks of the Daya
river, tens of thousands of soldiers smashed against one another, swords clashed against
armour, thousands of horse hoofs beat the Earth kicking up dust breaking spears and
helmet underfoot, as elephants charging through lines of panicked men caused chaos and madness,
their roars drowned by the cacophony of battle noises.
Ashoka, in the thick of the mayhem, struck down Kalingan after Kalingan with his signature
brutality.
As the hours dripped by the corpses of man and beast began to pile upon each other.
The Kalingans were crushed, 100,000 men dead.
150,000 taken as prisoners and there on the battlefield the victorious Ashoka walked among
the corpses, the death caused by his order.
Entering the city he watched as orphans and women wept, as families frantically tried
to salvage what was left, and countless innocents now destitute.
Kalinga was crushed, and as his men praised their great conquering emperor, Ashoka thought
to himself “If this is victory, what then is defeat”
Join me on the next episode where we’ll see Ashoka transform into the man that Orson
Welles claimed shinned alone like a star in history
and examine whether any of it is true.