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RELIGIOUS POLICY OF KHĀRAVEL A
365
Udayagiri to provide the Jaina saints and recluses with resting places. As for Brahmanism, he made donations for repairing the temples dedicated to various gods and goddesses, and feasted alike the Brāhmaṇa ascetics and the Jaina recluses. It may, hence, be inferred from all these that so far as this world was concerned he was a benefactor to all religieux and so far as the other world was concerned he was a pious Jaina.
It is true that Khāravela, like Asoka, honoured all denominations, which is to say that he observed the principle of religious toleration. But his idea of religious toleration, opines Dr. Barua,' was essentially of a Hindu nature. In his case, toleration implied the idea of non. interference, non-intervention, not meddling in another man's religion.
Further, Khāravela appears to have found it to be a wise policy on his part to leave each sect to follow its own creed without taking the trouble of considering the details of each faith. He does not appear to have made an attempt to bring all sects on a common platform for a free and frank discussion or an interchange of ideas for discovering the common ground and mission of all religions as well as determining the merits and defects of each religion. Though he claims for himself the title of •Dharmarāja' viz. King of Religion, but by the evidences at hand he does not appear to be a religious leader in the sense Asoka and Akbar were. The latter had their own ideas aad programmes in religious field.
2. OBI, 263.
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