THE GREAT ANCIENT EMPIRESstated: ‘Even a hundredth or a thousandth part only of the people who
were slain, killed or abducted in Kalinga is now considered as a grievous
loss by Devanampiya [Beloved of the Gods, i.e. Ashoka]’,^5 and he also
stated that he now only strove for conquest in spiritual terms by spreading
the doctrine of right conduct (dhamma).
He became a Buddhist lay member (upasaka) and two years after the
Kalinga war he even went on a 256-day pilgrimage (dhamma-yata) to all
Buddhist holy places in northern India. On his return to Pataliputra he
celebrated a great festival of the Buddhist order and in the same year (258
BC, according to Eggermont) began his large-scale missionary activity. In
numerous rock edicts strategically placed in all parts of his empire he
propagated the principles of right conduct and, to all countries known to
him, he sent ambassadors to spread the message of right conduct abroad.
He instructed governors and district officers to have the principles of right
conduct inscribed on rocks and pillars wherever possible, thereby
producing a series of smaller rock edicts in which Ashoka openly confessed
his Buddhist faith.
In the following year, 257 BC, he had the first four of altogether
fourteen large rock edicts cut into rocks in the frontier regions of his
empire. Eight more or less complete versions of these have been discovered
so far. More recently two fragmentary versions came to light. One of them,
a Greek-Aramaic bilingual, was found even in far-off Kandahar in
Afghanistan. In these edicts Ashoka ordered all citizens of his empire to
desist as far as possible from eating meat and he also prohibited illicit and
immoral meetings. He indicated his goodwill to all neighbours beyond the
borders of his empire: to the Cholas, Pandyas, Satyaputras, Keralaputras
and to Tambapani (Sri Lanka) in the south and to King Antiyoka of Syria
(Antiochos II, 261 to 246 BC) and his neighbours in the west. Further, he
ordered different ranks of officers to tour the area of their jurisdiction
regularly to see that the rules of right conduct were followed.
Ashoka’s orders seem to have been resisted right from the beginning. He
indirectly admitted this when, in the new series of rock edicts in the
thirteenth year after his coronation he stated: ‘Virtuous deeds are difficult
to accomplish. He who tries to accomplish them faces a hard task.’ In
order to break the resistance and to intensify the teaching of right conduct
he appointed high officers called Dhamma-Mahamatras that year. They
had to teach right conduct and supervise the people in this. They also had
to report to the emperor, and he emphasised that these officers were to
have access to him at all times even if he was having his meals or resting in
his private rooms. These officers were ‘deployed everywhere, in Pataliputra
as well as in all distant cities, in the private rooms of my brothers and
sisters and all of my relatives’.
In the same year in which he appointed these special officers he also sent
ambassadors (duta) to the distant countries of the West. As a unique event