Page 107 - The Buddha‘s Noble Eightfold Path

involved and apply them to this aspect of one's collective

existence too.

In India this political ideal or political teaching of Buddhism
received its greatest exemplification in the person of the
Emperor Ashoka. He was a great ruler of the Maurya dynasty,

and lived about two hundred years after the Buddha. He
inherited from his father the kingdom of Magadha, which he

proceeded to expand, promptly swallowing up nearly all the
other states of the sub-continent. A series of mopping-up
operations increased the dimensions of Magadha even beyond

those of present day India and Pakistan. The last state left for
Ashoka to subdue, in the days before he became a Buddhist,

was the state of Kalinga, on the east coast, roughly
corresponding to the modern state of Orissa. As Ashoka himself
recorded in one of his Rock Edicts, 'One hundred and fifty

thousand persons were carried away captive, one hundred
thousand were slain, and many times that number died.' Seeing

the havoc that had been wrought, Ashoka realized the misery
brought about by war and by his own conquests. In his own
words, he 'felt profound sorrow and regret because the

conquests of a people previously unconquered involved
slaughter, death, and deportation . . .[and because] even those

who escaped calamity themselves are deeply afflicted by the
misfortunes suffered by those friends, acquaintances,
companions, and relatives for whom they feel an undiminished

affection.' So he gave up this career of conquest — possibly the
only example in history of a great conqueror who stopped in

mid-career because he realized the moral wickedness of it all.
He stopped and he completely reversed. Instead of being

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