Special thanks to Alex Frith for suggesting the subject of this month’s column. I had to do some deep diving for this one, but it was a lot of fun. If you too would like to suggest a film for the column, please leave a note in the comments or contact me on Discord.
When it comes to this column, sometimes I am the teacher, and sometimes I am the student. In general, the farther East we move, the further out to sea I am. This column marks our second visit to the Indian subcontinent, after last year’s tour of the Mahabharata. This month’s subject is not a work of literature but a person: the Emperor Ashoka of the Mauryan Empire, who ruled a large swath of the subcontinent from approximately 270-230 BCE.
I only have a layman’s knowledge of India, its history, and culture. I knew two things about Ashoka: 1) he converted to Buddhism, and 2) his emblem—a version of the Buddhist chakra—adorns the flag of modern-day India.
Those two things sounded like a complete contradiction to me. Buddhism might have its origins in India, but it is only a dominant religious demographic on Opposite Day. There are three times as many Christians as Buddhists in present-day India.
How did Ashoka, the Buddhist king, become a national symbol of predominantly Hindu and Muslim India such that Shah Rukh Khan, the Baadshah of Bollywood, wanted to produce and star in a film about his life? I have finally found the answer, which I am now going to share with you. Let’s begin!
Sects!
Like many famous men (and women) from the distant past, Ashoka is a cipher. The historical Ashoka is more or less lost to us, but we know at least two idealized versions of the king from two different sets of writings. One is a series of inscriptions Ashoka dotted throughout the subcontinent. They are his own words, which is something truly remarkable: How often do we have the ipsissima verba of any ancient figure? For example, do we even have accurate reports of anything said by Alexander the Great, Ashoka’s near-contemporary? The reason I maintain that this is not the “historical” Ashoka is that royal inscriptions are, by default, propaganda. They only show us the image he wanted to project, which, admittedly, shows more candor than the average king (more on this anon). Also, due to the time and expense of carving your thoughts on stone, all the inscriptions together have a total of about 3200 words (the approximate length of this column).
The other Ashoka is the one of Buddhist legend. In fact, there is more than one body of legends about Ashoka. They do not accord with each other, nor do they accord with the Ashoka of the inscriptions. The one that first came to the attention of Westerners (the British, of course) was the Mahāvaṃsa, a chronicle of the history of Sri Lanka written in Pali, the sacred language of Theravāda Buddhism (which is dominant in Sri Lanka). The other is the Aśokāvadāna, written in Sanskrit by the Buddhist monks of Mathura in northern India. According to my notes, this is neither a Theravāda nor a Mahāyāna text but falls somewhere in between these two flavors of Buddhism. In any case, it was swiftly translated into Chinese and must have penetrated the predominantly Mahāyāna world of China, Korea, and Japan.
The two traditions agree on only a few details. Ashoka was initially a bad seed who overthrew his own brother to claim the throne, earning him the moniker Chandashoka or “Ashoka the Fierce.” He was converted by a Buddhist monk, after which he became Dharmashoka, “Ashoka the Pious.” He then patronized the Buddhist monastic community, the Sangha, and distributed relics of the Buddha throughout the kingdom. This summary of Ashoka’s life is so bare bones because the Mahāvaṃsa and the Aśokāvadāna differ in all the particulars, including Ashoka’s previous life, the circumstances of his conversion, the name of the monk who converts him, and the names of his brothers, wives, and children.
The Aśokāvadāna opens with… a lot of irrelevant preliminaries (for our purposes). Once Ashoka has usurped the throne and killed his elder half-brother, he commissions the building of a prison called “Ashoka’s Hell,” which looks pleasant on the exterior but, once you enter, you are not permitted to leave alive. A Buddhist monk wonders into the Hell seeking alms, and his serene resistance to the various tortures so impresses Ashoka that he converts on the spot and demolishes the Hell. He then finances the construction of 84,000 stupas and goes on a pilgrimage to all the holy sites associated with the life of the Buddha. His renunciation of violence is a bit half-assed, however, since he openly persecutes Jain “heretics” (a persecution that accidentally claims the life of his beloved full brother, a Buddhist monk) and then executes his second wife following a Hippolytus and Phaedra situation where she makes goo-goo eyes at Ashoka’s son, Kunala.
The Mahāvaṃsa is primarily an ecclesiastical history of Sri Lanka, and its interest in Ashoka is limited to his impact on the island (which is never referenced in the Aśokāvadāna). Ashoka is the prime mover behind the semi-legendary “Third Buddhist Council,” which became necessary after Ashoka’s conversion led to the entrance of opportunistic heretics into the Sangha. Ashoka’s accession and conversion is blandly recounted. He killed his half-brothers once their father was dead, and he was eventually converted to Buddhism by none other than the son of one of the slain brothers. His special patronage of Sri Lanka includes sending his two children—Mahinda and Sanghamitra—as missionaries. He later transplants the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha first found enlightenment to the island as part of his program of distributing relics.
Both texts were in circulation around the fifth century CE, but late texts contain ancient traditions yadda yadda, and you can redate them earlier as necessary to fit your pet theories. The inscriptions, however, still provide the best insight into the life of the monarch, seeing as how they were written eight centuries earlier during his actual lifetime. Ashoka was the first Indian ruler to commission such inscriptions, which had been standard practice in the Persian Empire, recently Alexander’d to death. Ashoka also developed an alphabet to write his edicts, the Brahmi script, in the Prakrit language. History rewarded his media savviness with developments in writing and language that led to, in a matter of centuries, no one being able to read them anymore.
So, for example, the Chinese monk Xuanzang, in his personal account of his celebrated journey to the west, observed some of the pillars with Ashoka’s inscriptions and interpreted them in light of the Buddhist legends he knew about the king. But, despite his claims to the contrary, he could not actually read them. Similarly, Firuz Shah Tughlaq, a Muslim ruler of Delhi, was impressed with the monuments and had them carefully transported to his capital. He had no idea what they said, however, nor could he find anyone who could read them.
The riddle was eventually solved by bored British colonials. James Prinsep deciphered the Brahmi script in 1837, which blew open the path to translation. It took a while to connect the inscriptions to Ashoka, however, since Ashoka does not refer to himself by that name but instead favors Priyadasi. It was the concurrent translation of the Sri Lanka chronicles by George Turnour that eventually sealed the connection between the Buddhist king and the edicts.
What do the rock and pillar edicts actually contain? Dharma. Dharma dharma dharma dharma. Dharma is good. Go on Dharma tours. Be excellent to one another. Stop eating animals. I’m only eating three these days, and not all the time. No divisions in the Buddhist community, please. And, although I explicitly refer to myself as a Buddhist layman, all the religions in my kingdom are worthy of respect.
There’s also Kalinga. What is Kalinga? Apparently, the modern Indian state of Odisha (formerly Orissa). This is what today’s feature has decided, so we’re running with it.
Ashoka’s most famous inscription is about the war he waged against this rebellious state. He is a little hazy on the details, but he obviously felt very, very bad about it (translation of Smith, p. 185).
Kalinga was conquered by His Sacred and Gracious Majesty the King when he had been consecrated eight years. One hundred and fifty thousand persons were thence carried away captive, one hundred thousand were there slain, and many times that number died. Directly after the Kalingas had been annexed began His Sacred Majesty’s zealous protection of the Law of Piety, his love of that Law, and his inculcation of that Law. Thence arises the remorse of His Sacred Majesty for having conquered the Kalingas, because the conquest of a country previously unconquered involves the slaughter, death, and carrying away captive of the people. That is a matter of profound sorrow and regret to His Sacred Majesty.
This apparently formative experience—mentioned nowhere in the Buddhist legends—became, in popular imagination, the episode that put Ashoka on the path to enlightenment. Only—no one really knows what happened during this war! This month’s film took the liberty of filling in those details.
Lies!
First things first: The name of the movie is Aśoka, with the fancy-schmancy diacritics. I will be using this spelling when I talk about the film. When I refer to the name of the king, I will continue to use the romanization “Ashoka.” It is important not to confuse this Ashoka with anyone else.
This, for example, is not Ashoka.
And this is certainly not Ashoka.
Ashoka is a dude, so keep it in your pants. Or even outside your pants, you pervs. Disgusting.
Unless, that is, you’re into dudes, in which case you are in luck because Ashoka is played in Aśoka by Shah Rukh Khan, so famous that his fans skip the full name and go straight to the initials SRK.
This is already a major break from tradition because the Aśokāvadāna reports that Ashoka was an uggo, the result of giving the Buddha an offering of dirt in a previous life. This good-hearted gift was enough to elevate him to kingship but not enough to make him good-looking.
The first act of Ashoka in the film comes straight from the Aśokāvadāna. Nothing else will, but this episode does. Ashoka is sent to put down an uprising in the city of Taxila, leading to a series of battles in the first ten minutes. Now, in the Buddhist text, there are no battles at all. His father sends him away without weapons because he is trying to get his son killed. Destiny intervenes, and weapons magically appear for Ashoka anyway… which he doesn’t even need because his army appears so fierce that the rebels immediately capitulate.
The movie rightly decides that’s no fun and has SRK duel it out with the rebel leader after some cornball bravado. “Surrender to me! The weapon is in my hand!” the Taxilan taunts. “That is no weapon,” Ashoka says as he pulls out some gnarly twirling blades. “THIS is a weapon.”
Back home, Prince Susima is most unhappy that his younger half-brother has returned victorious instead of in a coffin. After another attempt on his life, Ashoka goes into hiding at his mother’s behest in the neighboring state of… Kalinga!
This isn’t the war just yet. Everything that happens during this first stay in Kalinga is, as far as I can tell, entirely made up. It is when this Bollywood film is at its Bollywoodest—so I’ll save it for the next section.
Mom eventually summons Ashoka home, and now the Aśokāvadāna is out and the Mahāvaṃsa is in. Susima, still suspicious of Ashoka, sends him out to fight again. He takes the city of Ujjain but is wounded in the process. While recovering at a Buddhist monastery, he meets and marries the young woman Devi, who bears him two children, the future apostles of Buddhism to Sri Lanka. He also finally gets around to killing Susima, and his remaining half-brothers flee to… Kalinga, setting the stage for the final conflict. NONE of these details appear in the north Indian text, but all of them, save the return to Kalinga, are in the Sri Lankan chronicle.
In the last act, then, we finally see the war with Kalinga, where Ashoka, having gone mad from the personal losses he has suffered (but which I have elided—I’m not going to spoil the WHOLE movie for you), decides to kill, like, everyone. After a quick glance at the runtime, I realized that this movie, which is a full three hours long, was not going to advance beyond the point where Ashoka intuits that scorched earth warfare is not the best way to resolve one’s personal problems.
This is a brilliant way to end the film because it means at no point does the film, made by non-Buddhists for a non-Buddhist audience, engage with actual Buddhism. It ends with a title card that says something to the effect of “After Ashoka embraced a path of non-violence, he made a bunch of cool things. Some of it is even on our money!”
The result of this decision is that a whole lot of stuff gets left on the table. Ashoka’s life is effectively cut in half. Everything that happens after his conversion is just… not there. No pilgrimage, no stupas, no Buddhist councils, and no Kunala. Even events from before his conversion are missing. I rue the absence of Ashoka’s Hell. What’s there in its place? Well…
Videotape!
Aśoka is a full-blown Bollywood movie, which means a few things.
*Production and funding out of Bombay (or Mumbai, but it’s not called Mollywood, is it?). This is increasingly optional.
*A three hour runtime, regardless of subject matter. Romantic comedy? Three hours. Horror? Three hours. 3 Idiots? Three hours. RRR isn’t a title. It’s a runtime.
*On-the-nose themes. I have yet to mention Aśoka’s prologue, where the prince inherits his grandfather’s sword (against gramps’ wishes) then immediately—but accidentally—kills a whole family of birds with it.
*Overwrought emotions. Those birds will cause just as much anguish as the slain men, women, and children later in the film.
*Production design. Notice the lack of a qualifier here. I can’t tell whether the production design is better or worse than the average Indian film, but there is certainly a lot of it.
*Singing and dancing.
This last one is the kicker. It is the way that the film makes this Buddhist story of redemption sexy. As soon as Ashoka escapes into Kalinga, he espies a woman prancing around like she’s in a Chanel No. 5 commercial.
The Kalinga episode—the FIRST Kalinga episode—is essentially an independent, unrelated Bollywood film that has been shoved into a reasonably coherent historical epic.
Our songstress is named Kaurwaki, played by Kareena Kapoor, another Bollywood star (she’s in 3 Idiots, playing a non-idiot). She and her kid brother are Kalinga royalty, on the lam following the murder of their parents by the prime minister. Ashoka, moonlighting as a vagrant named Pawan (“Wind”), takes them under his wing. Nothing further comes of this relationship.
Hahaha. Just kidding! They fall in love.
Ashoka is summoned home before Kaurwaki learns his real name. Ashoka is then led to believe that Kaurwaki has died because he was not there to protect her.
When Ashoka returns to Kalinga with his army, will he come face-to-face with his former lover, who is now the leader of her country? That would be WILD, wouldn’t it? I wouldn’t dare spoil the ending, although if you haven’t seen many movies, you might get serious Boss Baby vibes from this one.
This whole section of the movie is not bizarre on its own, but it is when compared to the rest of the film. The Kalinga section is filled with broad humor, while the rest is arch serious. All the songs are in this section, save one, where Ashoka is later reminiscing about his lost love. This is also the erotic portion of our martial epic, whose tagline is “Only the dead have seen the end of war.” Lots of gyrating is involved… but absolutely no kissing. At least the passion is credible. When Devi, Ashoka’s second wife, claims she is pregnant, I wonder how they did it. Spores, perhaps?
The insertion of the first Kalinga episode also creates a labyrinth of plot contrivances that are downright Shakespearean. And I don’t mean the dialogue. Excuse me, “dialouge.”
I mean that the characters go out of their way to withhold crucial information so that the story can happen. There are also lots of chance encounters—and non-encounters—that keep the wheel of Plot Dharma spinning towards its tragic conclusion.
Overall, though, I come down positive on this film. I love the Conan aesthetic. The movie looks like it was made in 1985. There are also some lovely compositions, like this shot of a Buddhist monk against a sunset…
…or Ashoka leaning against a chakra, which literally means “wheel.”
The chakra initially stood for the chariot wheel, a symbol of conquest. But it also has a spiritual meaning, the “Wheel of Dharma” so prominent in Buddhism—but also other Indic religions.
This brings us back to our initial question. How did this Buddhist king become a national icon of India? The historical Ashoka was a convinced Buddhist, but he also ruled over a vast and diverse empire. His propaganda, therefore, appealed to the broadest possible base through the promotion of the pan-Indian concept of Dharma. I did not define this term because it means different things in different contexts: civic duty, law, piety, or more specific sectarian meanings (e.g., the teachings of the Buddha). In other words, it can mean anything to anyone.
Nehru and the rest of the constitutional committee simply followed in Ashoka’s footsteps. In its initial phase, the Indian tricolor was intended to symbolize the new nation’s various religious communities: saffron for Hindus, green for Muslims, and white for everyone else (or, alternatively, for peace between the various communities). Immediately before independence, with unanimous consent, the flag was stamped with the Ashokan Chakra, a symbol that could represent the aspirations of a billion people.
Gavin McDowell is a Hoosier by birth and French by adoption. He received his doctorate in “Languages, History, and Literature of the Ancient World from the Beginning until Late Antiquity” and is currently investigating Aramaic translations of the Bible. He also runs a book club out of Alternate Ending’s Discord, where we read novels and short stories that were later adapted to film. For more of his unprovoked movie opinions, see his Letterboxd account.