The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

by Sanjeev Sanyal

As one can see, Ashoka does not look like such a great king on closer inspection but a cruel and unpopular usurper who presided over the disintegration of a large and well-functioning empire built by his father and grandfather. At the very least, it must be accepted that evidence of Ashoka’s greatness is thin and he was some shade of grey at best. Perhaps like many politicians, he made grand high-minded proclamations but acted entirely differently. This fits with the fact that he is not remembered as a great monarch in the Indian tradition but in hagiographic Buddhist texts written in countries that did not experience his reign. He was ‘rediscovered’ in the nineteenth century by colonial-era orientalists like James Prinsep. His elevation to being ‘Ashoka the Great’ is even more recent and is the result of political developments leading up to India’s independence.