india=hindu=brahmin

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:poorly written online consulate forms designed by indian IT professionals are the most secular symbols.

panini press wrote:Interestingly, the official symbols of the republic are:

1. the national emblem, which combines the Ashokan lion capital (which isn't necessarily religious, and the closest it is is to Buddhism) and an upanishadic statement (which is definitely Hindu).

2. the national flag, with two of its colors originally representing Hinduism and Islam, although the saffron color actually represents asceticism and is common in Buddhism as well; the chakra in the middle is again Ashokan and either non-religious or Buddhist

panini press wrote:Interestingly, the official symbols of the republic are:

1. the national emblem, which combines the Ashokan lion capital (which isn't necessarily religious, and the closest it is is to Buddhism) and an upanishadic statement (which is definitely Hindu).

2. the national flag, with two of its colors originally representing Hinduism and Islam, although the saffron color actually represents asceticism and is common in Buddhism as well; the chakra in the middle is again Ashokan and either non-religious or Buddhist

garam_kuta wrote:just curious - was ashokan's transformation happened overnight due to the melancholy that he internalized of the kalinga war or was it a slow inevitable conversion and acceptance of political expediency of the overwhelming buddhism popularity among people? is there any reference that one can look up ?

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:

garam_kuta wrote:just curious - was ashokan's transformation happened overnight due to the melancholy that he internalized of the kalinga war or was it a slow inevitable conversion and acceptance of political expediency of the overwhelming buddhism popularity among people? is there any reference that one can look up ?

good question. maybe there are some answers in the book PP just read.

i have always felt that the kalinga war-and-remorse story is exaggerated. ashoka killed hundreds of his brothers and threw them in a well, probably killed his father too (whom he deeply adored once but was betrayed by), killed hundreds of ministers whom he suspected -- ashoka felt no remorse then? the fact is that he was no stranger to blood and gore; he was a hardcore killing machine. what's more important is that he was healed by a buddhist nun when wounded once; somewhere in MP i think, and it was there that he was exposed to buddhism. this was before his ascension. i think he made that nun or nurse one of his wives later. he was influenced by her i feel. then, like his grand father, he knew that there existed a tradition of retreating to monk-hood in one's latter years. he did what he thought was traditionally the morally correct thing to do (after having been successful). he lived in accordance with a moral design (set by his grand father). there was no overnight or slow transformation. everything was premeditated. this is all IMO.

panini press wrote:

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:

garam_kuta wrote:just curious - was ashokan's transformation happened overnight due to the melancholy that he internalized of the kalinga war or was it a slow inevitable conversion and acceptance of political expediency of the overwhelming buddhism popularity among people? is there any reference that one can look up ?

good question. maybe there are some answers in the book PP just read.

i have always felt that the kalinga war-and-remorse story is exaggerated. ashoka killed hundreds of his brothers and threw them in a well, probably killed his father too (whom he deeply adored once but was betrayed by), killed hundreds of ministers whom he suspected -- ashoka felt no remorse then? the fact is that he was no stranger to blood and gore; he was a hardcore killing machine. what's more important is that he was healed by a buddhist nun when wounded once; somewhere in MP i think, and it was there that he was exposed to buddhism. this was before his ascension. i think he made that nun or nurse one of his wives later. he was influenced by her i feel. then, like his grand father, he knew that there existed a tradition of retreating to monk-hood in one's latter years. he did what he thought was traditionally the morally correct thing to do (after having been successful). he lived in accordance with a moral design (set by his grand father). there was no overnight or slow transformation. everything was premeditated. this is all IMO.

You are right. Per Allen's book, Ashoka was exposed to Buddhism by his first wife, who bore him the children Mahendra and Sanghamitra who went on to become Buddhist missionaries to Lanka. This was when he was governor of Avanti based in Ujjayini, a few years before he moved against his elder half-brother. Later he himself converted, becoming a lay Buddhist in the (2nd or) 3rd year after his coronation (i.e. a few years after killing all his brothers except one). The Kalinga war was fought 5-6 years later.

The legend of the king's transformation because of the ghastliness of that war has its origins in Ashoka's edicts. I think he deliberately wanted to show his subjects that he was taking a turn because of that war. Edicts about the Kalinga war and its effects on him appear all over India except in Kalinga itself (where it would be insensitive to rub salt into the people's wounds by etching the story of their defeat in stone).

PS: The book says that Ashoka caused Bindusara's death by appearing in front of the frail old man and demanding that he be designated regent while his elder half brother, the declared heir apparent, was in Takshashila. According to the story, the old man was so taken aback by Ashoka's outrageous request that he died on the spot. Of course, this may be the Buddhist chronicles refraining from writing about their hero's killing of his own father, but in matters like these one can never hope to know what actually went down.

kinnera wrote:

panini press wrote:

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:

garam_kuta wrote:just curious - was ashokan's transformation happened overnight due to the melancholy that he internalized of the kalinga war or was it a slow inevitable conversion and acceptance of political expediency of the overwhelming buddhism popularity among people? is there any reference that one can look up ?

good question. maybe there are some answers in the book PP just read.

i have always felt that the kalinga war-and-remorse story is exaggerated. ashoka killed hundreds of his brothers and threw them in a well, probably killed his father too (whom he deeply adored once but was betrayed by), killed hundreds of ministers whom he suspected -- ashoka felt no remorse then? the fact is that he was no stranger to blood and gore; he was a hardcore killing machine. what's more important is that he was healed by a buddhist nun when wounded once; somewhere in MP i think, and it was there that he was exposed to buddhism. this was before his ascension. i think he made that nun or nurse one of his wives later. he was influenced by her i feel. then, like his grand father, he knew that there existed a tradition of retreating to monk-hood in one's latter years. he did what he thought was traditionally the morally correct thing to do (after having been successful). he lived in accordance with a moral design (set by his grand father). there was no overnight or slow transformation. everything was premeditated. this is all IMO.

You are right. Per Allen's book, Ashoka was exposed to Buddhism by his first wife, who bore him the children Mahendra and Sanghamitra who went on to become Buddhist missionaries to Lanka. This was when he was governor of Avanti based in Ujjayini, a few years before he moved against his elder half-brother. Later he himself converted, becoming a lay Buddhist in the (2nd or) 3rd year after his coronation (i.e. a few years after killing all his brothers except one). The Kalinga war was fought 5-6 years later.

The legend of the king's transformation because of the ghastliness of that war has its origins in Ashoka's edicts. I think he deliberately wanted to show his subjects that he was taking a turn because of that war. Edicts about the Kalinga war and its effects on him appear all over India except in Kalinga itself (where it would be insensitive to rub salt into the people's wounds by etching the story of their defeat in stone).

PS: The book says that Ashoka caused Bindusara's death by appearing in front of the frail old man and demanding that he be designated regent while his elder half brother, the declared heir apparent, was in Takshashila. According to the story, the old man was so taken aback by Ashoka's outrageous request that he died on the spot. Of course, this may be the Buddhist chronicles refraining from writing about their hero's killing of his own father, but in matters like these one can never hope to know what actually went down.

On my recent trip to India, I've been to Udaygiri, Konark and Puri. The guides at both Udaygiri and Konark were all praises for the Kalinga kings and the period before that where women were the rulers and also warriors in wars (hard to believe).
Anyway, the guide at Konark expressed his disgust at the perceived Asoka's greatness and the myth about his remorse. He says that Ashoka took about 1-2 lakh (i forgot the number he gave) ppl as prisoners of war to his kingdom and made them slaves. He argues how anyone who has any remorse could take someone as prisoners of war? If what he claims is true, then someone terribly messed up with history and fed us wrong info. Does it have a north indian bias to it ?

kinnera wrote:He argues how anyone who has any remorse could take someone as prisoners of war? If what he claims is true, then someone terribly messed up with history and fed us wrong info. Does it have a north indian bias to it ?

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:

kinnera wrote:He argues how anyone who has any remorse could take someone as prisoners of war? If what he claims is true, then someone terribly messed up with history and fed us wrong info. Does it have a north indian bias to it ?

lol. you are forgetting that one of his wives was oriya. as the story goes, when all the oriya men were felled by ashoka, this woman led other women to fight ashoka in the battlefield. ashoka was mesmerized by her beauty and made her his wife. after marriage, she converted to buddhism. this story is immortalized in the bollywood movie "ashoka."

and PP is right. there is an underlying buddhism vs hinduism aspect to every narration of ashoka and the buddhist kings' story. after the mauryas, a hindu brahmin king came into power for a brief period. one story goes that he was viindictive and destroyed many stupas and abolished buddhism as the state religion. another story (romila thapar) denies this. who knows who is right. but it is a fact that during his reign, the indo-greeks, related to the mauryas through matrimony, invaded patliputra, humiliated this king, and retreated because they had no interest in ruling over this territory.

panini press wrote: At the entrance to Konark, you probably saw a few figures of a lion on top of an elephant that is crushing a human figure (see below). Those figures represent the victory of Hinduism (symbolized by the lion) over Buddhism (the elephant); the suggestion is that Buddhism was crushing humanity. Konark was built in the 13th century CE, around the time the last major Buddhist communities in India were in terminal decline.