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KALINGA UNDER THE MAURYAS
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at the end of the war, the victorious Emperor stood over the heart of a conquered Kalinga. The Emperor was struck with remorse at the ghastly massacre of men which this compaign perpetrated.
The Kalinga war opened Aśoka's eyes to inherent dangers in the supreme political organization for the wellbeing of human life. He, so intensely, visualised the dreadful and soul-killing nature of the political state that his hatred for political principles, guiding and controlling the life of the State, set deep in his heart. To him, the political state became an embodiment of grossest instincts, finding outlet and expression in the field of politics. He understood that it sheds human blood without remorse for realising its ends ; it creates and fosters hatred and disunity ; it asserts, moreover, its own feigned superiority over political power by infusing awe, dread and fear in the lives of the people. As an ugly and crude instrument of political forces, it debases and dehumanises the personality of man.
The Thirteenth Rock Edict, about the Kalinga war, is a living confession of the futility of political principles of the Mauryan Sovereign. Asoka himself says, "That is the remorse (anusochana) of the Devānāmpriya on having conquered (vijiniti) the Kalingas, because the conquest of a country previously unconquered involves the slaughter, death and captivity of the people. This is a matter of profound sorrow and regret to the Devānāṁpriya.” But what was more regrettable to him was that among those who died, were slaughtered or taken captive, there must have been many who were devoted to Dharma (pious deeds), and that such contingencies to those men, again, must have brought disaster and affliction to their friends, acquaintances and relatives, who, though they themselves might have been
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