A section from the journey

Ashoka the Conqueror

Ashoka was the grandson of Chandragupta, and he came to the throne around 268 BCE. He ruled the Maurya empire at its widest reach, from the mountains of the northwest to the deep south. In the edicts he calls himself Devanampiya, Beloved of the Gods. But the man we meet first is not yet gentle. He is a strong, ambitious king with an army at his back, and one great unconquered land still in his sight.

We come now to the king whose name more people remember than any other from ancient India. Yet to understand why he is remembered, we must first meet him before he became the man of memory.

His name was Ashoka. He belonged to the line of the Mauryas, the family we have just been following. Chandragupta, who built the empire, was his grandfather. Bindusara, who held and widened it, was his father. So Ashoka was born to power, third in a line of strong kings.

He came to the throne around 268 BCE, and he ruled for a long time. Under him the empire reached its widest. It spread across almost the whole of this land, from the high mountains near Afghanistan in the northwest, down across the great plains, and far toward the south. No king before him had held so much.

There is a small wonder here worth pausing on. In his own writings, which we will read very soon, Ashoka almost never calls himself Ashoka. He calls himself , which means Beloved of the Gods, and Piyadasi, He Who Looks On With Affection. These were his royal titles, the names he wished to be known by.

But hold that gentle title lightly for now. For the Ashoka we must meet first is not gentle at all. The young king was strong, proud, and hungry to rule. Behind him stood the largest army this land had ever known. He governed his huge empire the way empires were governed in those days, by force and by fear.

And one thing still troubled his ambition. Almost the whole subcontinent answered to him, but one proud land to the east had never bent the knee. It lay on the coast, by the sea, and it was called . It was rich, it was free, and Ashoka wanted it.

So picture him now, before the change that made him famous. A powerful emperor at the height of his strength, looking east at the one land that defied him, ready to take it by the sword. What happened when he marched on Kalinga is the turning point of this whole era. We will come to it next.

We often know people only by who they became, and forget they were once someone else. Think of a person you admire for their kindness. Is it possible they were not always so, that something changed them? Hold that thought as we follow Ashoka to the war that changed him.