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Updated: June 14, 2025
There is no stone architecture now remaining in India, according to Sir James Fergusson, older than two and a half centuries before Christ; and this is in the form of Buddhist temples, generally traced to the great Asoka, who reigned from 272 B.C. to 236 B.C., and who established Buddhism as a state religion.
The type of character displayed by the rock inscriptions of King Asoka was a higher and sweeter type than the type of character displayed by the Jesus of the Gospels. Does this prove that King Asoka or his teacher, Buddha, was divine? Does it prove that the Buddhist faith is the only true faith? I shall treat this question more fully in another chapter.
And under the influence of extreme grief and affliction, the king of the Rakshasas suddenly cherished the desire of killing the princess of Mithila. And seizing a sword, the wicked Rakshasa hastily ran towards that lady staying within the Asoka wood longing to behold her lord. Then Avindhya beholding that sinful purpose of the wicked wretch, appeased his fury.
Rama, O king, shone in battle, like the Sumeru mountain with streams of liquid metal rolling down its breast, or like the Asoka tree at the advent of spring, when covered with red bunches of flowers, or, O king, like the Kinsuka tree when clad in its flowery attire!
And behind all these stood Chandragupta himself, the superman, ruthless and terrifically efficient; and Chanakya, his Macchiavellian minister: a combination to hurry the world into greatness. And so indeed they did. Under Asoka, Chandragupta's grandson, the age culminated.
The temple at Belur, an eleventh-century masterpiece completed during the reign of King Vishnuvardhana, is unsurpassed in the world for its delicacy of detail and exuberant imagery. The rock pillars found in northern Mysore date from the third century B.C., illuminating the memory of King Asoka.
In southern India the introduction of Buddhism took place under the auspices of Asoka himself, though his inscriptions have as yet been found only in northern Mysore and not in the Tamil country. The Tamil poems Manimêgalei and Silappadigaram, especially the former, represent it as prevalent and still preserving much of its ancient simplicity.
From the beginning of its power Christianity has been warlike, violent, and ruthless. To-day Europe is an armed camp, and it is not long since the Christian Kaiser ordered his troops to give no quarter to the Chinese. There has never been a Christian nation as peaceful as the Indians and Burmese under Buddhism. It was King Asoka, and not Jesus Christ or St.
Persian influence in art is discernible as early as the architecture of Asoka: in doctrine it has something to do with such figures as Vairocana and Amitâbha. Græco-Roman influence also was powerful in art and through art affected religion. In Asoka's time likenesses of the Buddha were unknown and the adoration of images, if not entirely due to the art of Gandhara, was at least encouraged by it.
Asoka burns with zeal to propagate this Dhamma and his language recalls the utterances of the Dhammapada. He formulates the law under four heads : "Parents must be obeyed: respect for living creatures must be enforced: truth must be spoken ... the teacher must be reverenced by the pupil and proper courtesy must be shown to relations."
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