A Lay Follower Before the Remorse: Aśoka as a Buddhist Devotee Prior to the Kalinga War, on the Evidence of the Minor Rock Edicts

Author(s)	Mr. Adv. Rajiv Ambadas Shinde
Country	India
Abstract	This paper argues, on the testimony of Aśoka's own inscriptions, that the Mauryan emperor was already a dhamma practitioner before the Kalinga war, but that the war converted him from a lay sympathizer into an earnest, systematic practitioner and lawgiver. Three bodies of evidence are examined. First, the chronology implicit in the Minor Rock Edicts, which distinguishes an early phase of "weak exertion" as a lay devotee from a later phase of "strong exertion" in the service of the Sangha, dates the intensification of his practice to the aftermath of Kalinga's annexation. Second, Rock Edict XIII — the only surviving royal account of the war — records the killing of one hundred thousand people and the deportation of one hundred and fifty thousand, and states that "afterwards" the king "very earnestly practiced Dhamma, desired Dhamma, and taught Dhamma" (Dwivedi, 2019). Third, the tradition preserved in the Pāli chronicles, which ascribes Aśoka's early exposure to Buddhism to his first consort, the daughter of a Buddhist merchant of Vidisha, supports the view that his interest pre-dated the war.
Keywords	King Ashoka, Kalinga war, dhamma Practitioner, Minor Rock Edicts, dhamma-vijaya, upāsaka, Saṅghamittā, Mahinda, Buddhist merchant, Vidisha
Field	Sociology > Archaeology / History
Published In	Volume 8, Issue 4, July-August 2026
Published On	2026-08-30
DOI	https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2026.v08i04.86818

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