Ashoka (Ashoka Maurya)

Assembled from 37 blocks · 1 evidence · 33 related

1. Story
2. Mauryan emperor, conventionally dated r. c. 268-232 BCE, known from some thirty-three inscriptions on rocks, pillars and cave walls in Prakrit dialects and, at Kandahar, in Greek and Aramaic. The inscriptions promote dhamma — a public ethic of restraint, non-injury and religious tolerance — and record the despatch of envoys. Buddhist textual tradition additionally credits him with convening a council at Pataliputra and sending missions, including his son Mahinda to Sri Lanka; those claims come from later Pali chronicles, not from the inscriptions, and historians treat the two bodies of evidence separately. Ashoka is the Journey's earliest well-attested case of state sponsorship changing a religion's reach.
3. Knowledge
4. Buddhism
5. Ashoka (Ashoka Maurya)
6. Elite and state adoption as a diffusion mechanism
7. Connections
8. Elite and state adoption as a diffusion mechanism
9. Buddhism
10. Ashoka's bilingual Greek-Aramaic inscription at Kandahar
11. Council at Pataliputra and the despatch of Buddhist missions (traditional account)
12. Malacca (Melaka)
13. Ashoka (Ashoka Maurya)
14. Council at Pataliputra and the despatch of Buddhist missions (traditional account)
15. Armenia's traditional adoption of Christianity as state religion
16. The 'Edict of Milan' — toleration and restitution in the Roman Empire
17. Aksum adopts Christianity under King Ezana
18. Fall of the Sasanian Empire to the Rashidun Caliphate
19. The ruling house of Malacca adopts Islam
20. Sogdian merchant networks
21. Silk Road religious corridor
22. Xuanzang
23. Mogao Caves
24. First cave cut at Mogao (traditional date)
25. Xuanzang travels to India and back
26. The Dunhuang Diamond Sutra is printed
27. Gandhara
28. Ashoka (Ashoka Maurya)
29. Ashoka's bilingual Greek-Aramaic inscription at Kandahar
30. Council at Pataliputra and the despatch of Buddhist missions (traditional account)
31. Buddhism attested in Han China
32. Anthropomorphic Buddha images appear in Gandhara and Mathura
33. Traditional founding of the first cave at Mogao
34. Xuanzang's overland journey to India and return
35. Construction of Borobudur under Shailendra patronage
36. Evidence
37. Ashoka issued proclamations of dhamma in Greek and Aramaic at Kandahar around 260 BCE, addressing borderland populations in their own languages; the wider corpus comprises about 33 inscriptions in Prakrit dialects in Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts.