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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
NOTÉS
269
Kāluvāki, the mother of Tivala” (Dutiyāye deviye ti Tīvala-mātu Kāluvākiye [dāne]). Thus the same difference of Asoka's mental attitude has been clearly brought out in his "Queen's Edict,” in his instructions to commemorate his second queen's donations by inscriptions representing her by her personal name and as his second queen and the mother of Prince Tivala.
In as many as five of his edicts (R. E. IV, R. E. V, R. E. VI, R. E. VII, P. E. VII), King Asoka has discussed his own position as a ruler with reference and in contrast to that of the former kings " who reigned in the past, during many hundred years." Like all great reformers, Buddha, Christ, and others, he has declared himself with reference to those who had gone before him to the effect that he came rather to fulfil than to destroy the Law. He says (P. E. VII) that he was able to recognize that the underlying motive of the former kings was to see the Law prosper sufficiently among the people, but the means adopted by them was not well-suited to the end. True to this underlying motive or spirit, he proceeded to devise, as a ripe fruit of his own reflections, certain new methods, such as the appointment of Dharma-mahāmatras, the public proclamations conveying happy royal messages, the formulations of moral principles, the nactment of many legislations, the introduction of quinquennial and tri. ennial tours of official inspection, the arrangements for a prompt despatch of business, the granting of the power of discretion to the high judicial officers, whereby he could see the Law prosper sufficiently among the people. So far as those methods went, he claimed that he had played the most difficult part of a pioneer (ādikara).
On the other hand, King Kbāravela, as he is represented in his inscription, appears to have followed the traditional methods of the former kings of Kalinga without exercising any discrimination on his own part. He did not play the rôle of a critic and reformer. He carried out a set programme of royal duties under the prompting of noble instincts and impulses, rather mechanically, without ever realising the need of a conscious adjustment of new methods to changed conditions of a progressive people. Thus in spite of the splendid success attending his administration, the credit must go to the time-honoured tradition which, as one might say, he had the prudence enough not to question...
The ability to foster all religions and to vouchsafe protection and extend patronage to all religious sects and institutions constitutes just another test for determining the status of a king overlord. If the invocation formula of the Hathi-Gumphã inscription, Namo arihamtānam, namo
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