However, the tradition that Ashoka actually became a Buddhist monk is now discredited. The inscriptions never mention the Buddha and show no awareness of his ‘Noble Eightfold Path’ or any other Buddhist schema. Even the idea of ‘conversion’ is suspect, since codes like those of the Buddhists and Jains were not seen as exclusive. Religion as creed, doctrine as dogma, and faith as truth are equations with little validity in pre-Islamic India. Most subscribed to the inexorable cycle of rebirth and to the notion that there were various ways of effecting eventual escape from it. The propitiation of a particular deity could help, but was more commonly a means of warding off disease and pestilence. Even brahmanical orthodoxy demanded no profession of faith, merely an acceptance of brahman authority and a high degree of caste conformity. There was indeed competition, especially amongst the heterodox sects, for adherents and for patronage. There was also ferocious debate which, on at least one occasion, required Ashoka’s intervention. But conversion, in the sense of renouncing one set of doctrines for another, was meaningless.
Instead Megasthenes divided India’s ‘philosophers’ not into like-minded sects but into ‘Bramanes and Sarmanes’, a distinction also made by Ashoka when referring, as above, to ‘Sramanas and brahmans’, or elsewhere to ‘Sramanas and householders’. ‘Sramanas’ denoted ‘renunciates’ and included all those who followed the mendicant and monastic habits of the heterodox sects as well as itinerant devotees of traditional deities. In other words, the crucial distinction was not between different belief systems but between different lifestyles. The individual was defined purely by his relationship to the rest of society. Not doctrine but conduct was what mattered.
Just so for Ashoka. He attempted no philosophical justification of dhamma, nor was he much given to rationalising it. It was not a belief system, not a developed ideology, just a set of behavioural exhortations. But because behaviour, conduct, was of such defining importance, any attempt to alter it was indeed revolutionary. Ashoka therefore needed a good reason for introducing his dhamma; and it should perhaps be sought in the need to promote a more united and uniform society.
Unprecedented solutions were required for an empire of unprecedented extent. In addition to the vast area roughly defined by the Rock Inscriptions (extending from Orissa to Mysore, Bombay, Junagadh, Kandahar, Peshawar and Dehra Dun), it seems fairly certain that the Kashmir valley was also included, and probably that of Nepal. The terrain varied from jungle to mountain, desert and flood-plain, and the population from nomadic hunter-gatherers to slash-and-burn tribesmen, pastoral herdsmen, fishing communities, arable and dairy farmers, craft villages, urbanised guilds, maritime and overland traders, and the highly sophisticated hierarchical societies of the major cities. Pataliputra itself, according to Megasthenes, lay within a walled and heavily fortified parallelogram of roughly fifteen kilometres by two and a half; its palace rivalled that of the Achaemenids, and even in decay made such an impression on a Chinese traveller that he thought it the work of spirits.
To preserve this empire intact, the Mauryan administration, if one may judge from what Megasthenes says and the Arthasastra expands, was one of the most elaborate on record. Government was construed as being largely about collecting taxes and administering justice. In each of these spheres the emperor and his mainly advisory council of ministers headed a hierarchy of officials which reached down through divisional and district officers to the toll-collector, the market overseer and the clerk who recorded the measurement and assessment of fields. The entire apparatus was subject to regular checks by a staff of inspectors who reported direct to the emperor, while a more sinister system of undercover informants provided a further check. All were appointed, directly or indirectly, by the emperor and had instant access to him.
This system was replicated by the four provincial administrations based at Suvarnagiri (near Kurnool in what is now Andhra Pradesh), Ujjain (Avanti/Malwa), Taxila (Panjab) and Tosali (thought to have been near Bhubaneshwar in Orissa). Each was headed by a governor, usually a son or brother of the emperor, although how much autonomy these local administrations enjoyed is questionable. Megasthenes paints a picture of a highly centralised, indeed personalised, administration, but he may have been generalising from conditions in Magadha itself. Centralisation was certainly the intention. The Greek ambassador’s enthusiasm for India’s roads is more than matched by Ashoka’s insistence in one of his Edicts that they be lined with shade trees, clearly marked with milestones, and provided with frequent wells, orchards and rest-houses. Communications were vital for trade; like instant access to the emperor, they were also essential to an effective despotism.
Another declared priority was standardisation. An Ashokan directive on ‘uniformity in judicial procedure and punishment’ is echoed in the Arthasastra, where taxes, duties and pay scales are all represented as standard. More generally, the whole structure of the administration and the use of standard proclamations and inscriptions were intended to knit the empire together. Caste, whether as the four-tier varna or the profession-based jati, scarcely receives a mention in the Edicts, but sectarian differences were much on the imperial mind. ‘The Beloved of the Gods,’ according to the twelfth Major Rock Edict, ‘honours all sects and both ascetics and laymen with gifts and various forms of recognition.’ But these benefits, Ashoka says, are unimportant compared to ‘the advancement of the essential doctrine of all sects’. The context here is that of a plea for toleration between the sects. No one is to disparage someone else’s teachings – or only mildly and on certain occasions. Concord is the ideal, and this is best realised by developing a recognition of a doctrinal essence that is common to all.
Although not specifically equated with dhamma, this supposed doctrinal essence seems to be the genesis of Ashoka’s big idea. The word ‘dhamma’ is a Prakrit spelling of the more familiar ‘dharma’, a concept difficult to translate but imbued with positive and idealised connotations in both orthodox Vedic literature and in the heterodox doctrines of Buddhists, Jains and Ajivikas. Invoking a natural order within which all manner of creation had its place and its role, it was something to which no one, be he brahman or Buddhist, emperor or slave, could reasonably take exception.
Dharma did, nevertheless, have different meanings for different sects, and Ashoka’s dhamma seems therefore to have sought common ground, borrowing from one what was least objectionable to the others. The emphasis on a respect for life in all its forms and on providing medical facilities for animals as well as men was clearly derived from Jain teachings. It appears that all live sacrifices were forbidden, and even the killing of animals for food was to be discouraged. The emperor was setting an example, in that his kitchen now required only two peacocks and the occasional deer, and ‘even these three animals will not be killed in future’. Such injunctions have often been taken to imply a ban on sacrificial extravaganzas and so a provocative swipe at those who derived their prestige and income from conducting them, namely brahmans. But, given a list elsewhere of the prohibited species, it seems that this rule may have applied only to wild creatures, not farm animals. Goats, sheep and cattle, the species most obviously in demand for both ritual and culinary purposes, are protected only when nursing their young. They must otherwise, therefore, have been exempt. Similarly, though adamant that ‘it is good not to kill human beings’, Ashoka seems to have retained capital punishment just as he retained the option of warfare. Dhamma was carefully formulated so that essential interests should not be prejudiced while sectarian concerns were being accommodated.
As well as conciliating the Jains, we know from an inscription in a cave in Orissa that Ashoka continued his father’s policy of patronising the Ajivikas. As for his Buddhist sympathies, they have already been mentioned. They found ample expression in dhamma, especially in injunctions about right conduct towards relatives, friends and colleagues. He makes, though, a significant addition by adding to the list of such beneficiaries the brahmans. Ashoka had no intention of slighting orthodox society or its deities. ‘The Beloved of the Gods’ would keep in with the gods, whatever his personal sympathy for the Buddhist sangha