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Asokan ideal of Dhamma Vijaya
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The Rock Edict XIII is among the most important documents of Asokan history. It expresses a new idea that of conquest by Dhamma instead of by war and violence. It seems that Asoka, when reviewing the early part of his reign retrospect. was extremely upset at the unhappiness caused b the Kalinga War. It appears that his remorse over the war grew with the years but did not exist to a great extent immediately after the war. Eventually, by way of repentance he devoted himself to a zealous study of Dhamma. He considers deplorable. the deaths and deportations that accompany war. The idea of conquest through Dhamma is a logical development of the theory of Dhamma. It is opposed to conquest by force and thus eliminates aggressive warfare. By the term 'conquest' Asoka does not mean the actual warfare or overrunning or control of foreign territory; it implies the adoption of the principles of Dhamma by the foreign countries. Thus he includes the Greek kingdoms of Syria, Egypt, Cyrene, Macedonia, and Epirus as having been conquered by Dhamma, whereas in fact all that may have happened was a cordial exchange of embassies or missions or merely the sending of one of these by Asoka to the Greek kings mentioned.
The universality of Asoka's Dhamma may be particularly appreciated with regard to its psycho, ethical concepts. In his Pillar Edict II enumerates are six principles, which in his opinion goes to constitute Dhamma "The first two are apasinave and bahukayāne. Apāsinave corresponds in a sense to 'apāparisrava' meaning "little demerit" minimum of sins'. Evidently the two terms represents two sides of piety namely negative and positive: "little evil' and 'much good'. The second term. bahukayāne or 'much good as an abstract moral quality finds its fulfillment in many good deeds. The other concepts, which constitute Dhamma, are dayā, dāne, sache, sochaye, mādave and sādhave."
The first pair of terms consists of dayā and dāna. Dayā means pity for all living beings, which included anārambho prānanām, avihisā bhutanām i.e. non slaughter and non injury to creatures. Pity as a noble feeling stands opposed to cruelty. Dāna, which may be translated by liberality, charity is a tangible expression of dayā. Dāna. implies tyāga, which is both the spirit and the act of self sacrifice. Asoka speaks of various forces and acts of dāna." In Pillar Edict II he expressly refers to *the gift of the eye and 'granting the boon of life to the lower creatures. The monumental acts of piety mentioned in P.E.III are all concrete instances of dāna. It is with reference to the eye of wisdom that Asoka declared the gift of the doctrine (Dhamma dāna) to be the best of all gifts. Asoka speaks of the four moral qualities that go to enhance the value of dāna viz sayame (self control) bhāvasudhtā (purity of motive) kriajñatā (gratitude) and dridha bhaktitā (firm devotion).
The next two categories of Asoka's Dhamma are sache and sochaye. The first term in Asoka's terminology stands for truthfulness in utterances as is evident from the insistence on speaking the truth. It also comes with it the idea of speech, which is pleasant. sweet and appealing. Asoka insists on uttering words that are not harsh. impetuous, crude and that are full of winsome cordiality. The sweetness in meaning gets its due emphasis in Rock Edict XIV. The term sochaye here translated by purity really implies the sense of purity or the consciousness of being oneself pure in body, speech and thought. This may be treated as the pre requisite of a pious deed or an act of virtue.
The next pair of terms is composed of mādave and sādhave. By mādave is meant gentleness. mildness that is the opposite of intrepidity accounting for all rash acts of violence, detention and coercion. In sādhave we have the concept of nobleness under which comes all noble deeds 64
Thus the above mentioned qualities and practices go the make up Asoka's Dhamma. But this is not all that we have to understand by his Dhamma. These qualities and practices form only its positive
