Ashoka in Ancient IndiaIn the third century BCE, Ashoka ruled an empire encompassing much of modern-day India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh. During his reign, Buddhism proliferated across the South Asian subcontinent, and future generations of Asians came to see him as the ideal Buddhist king. Disentangling the threads of Ashoka’s life from the knot of legend that surrounds it, Nayanjot Lahiri presents a vivid biography of this extraordinary Indian emperor and deepens our understanding of a legacy that extends beyond the bounds of Ashoka’s lifetime and dominion. |
Contents
Prelude | 1 |
Chapter 1 An Apocryphal Early Life | 24 |
Chapter 2 Pataliputra and the Prince | 43 |
Chapter 3 Mauryan Taxila | 66 |
Chapter 4 Affairs of the Heart and State | 87 |
Chapter 5 The End and the Beginning | 104 |
Chapter 6 The Emperors Voice | 118 |
Chapter 7 Extending the Arc of Communication to Afghanistan | 161 |
Chapter 10 Building Beliefs into Edifices | 226 |
Chapter 11 An Ageing Emperors Interventions | 260 |
Chapter 12 Of Wifely Woes and the Emperors Death | 280 |
The Emperors Afterlife | 289 |
The Inscriptions of Ashoka | 308 |
Notes | 318 |
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373 | |