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Religion, Practice and Science of Non-Violence
the greedy."
Even the unintentional taking of a human life is a sin. In the city of Vaishali, there once lived a priest, who while carrying the alms bow), sat down upon a chair that was covered with a cloth, killing a child that was underneath. At about the same time, there was another priest who received poisoned food; which he gave to another priest, not knowing that it was poisoned, and the second priest died. Both went to the Buddha and informed him in much sorrow of what had taken place. The Buddha declared that the priest who had the poisoned food was innocent, but the priest who sat on the chair, and through it caused the death of a child, was guilty, as he had not taken the precaution of looking under the cloth, and had sat down without being invited to sit down by the house-holder.
After the Buddha pased away, the followers of Buddhism divided into two schools, each one believing that it carried the true teaching of the Buddha. Generally speaking, the first school, Hinayana looked upon the salvation of the individual as the goal, whereas the other school, Mahayana took the salvation of all beings as its aim. The first three centuries of the Christian era witnessed the spread of Buddhism over large parts of Asia including China. Impetus in this direction was provided by the missionary zeal of emperor Ashoka.
Ashoka
Of the many rock and pillar edicts that convey the political, social and philosophical thoughts of Ashoka's time, the thirteenth rock edict informs us about the emperor being won over to non-violence .... It says, “When he had been consecrated for eight years, the Beloved of the gods, the king Piyadassi conquered Kalinga. A hundred and fifty thousand people were deported, a hundred thousand were killed and many times that number perished. Afterwards, now that Kalinga was annexed, the Beloved of the gods, very earnestly practised Dhamma, desired Dhamma, and taught Dhamma. On conquering Kalinga, the Beloved of the gods felt remorse, for, when an independent country is conquered, the slaughter, death, and deportation of the people is extremely grievous to the Beloved
i Dhamma-pada, XXVI 405-6 (SBE, X, p. 93).
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