Ashoka the Great

Footnote Ruhani, spiritual.

Evidently he thought that my work was not entirely done, and would have me be ever looking for help to the spirit, whose strength is made perfect in weakness.

Since then he has written me a tablet letter from which I quote the following lines.

O thou my spiritual philosopher, thy letter was received.

Footnote, same as above, page 350.

End footnote.

At the point at which this brief sketch begins, our Mullah was anxiously looking out for the return of his messenger, Mashhadi Ahmad, from Shiraz, with authentic news of the reported divine manifestation.

When the messenger returned, he found Mullah Muhammad Ali in the mosque, about to give a theological lecture.

So there's a partnership being struck up between warriors and, uh, priests or, uh, sages.

And, uh, in a way, that also seems to have some connection to the historical context if we think back to the Emperor Ashoka and his, you know, uh, embrace of, uh, the Buddhist dharma, and particularly the idea of non-harming.

And, uh-

Right

The Vatsyayana Sutra Introductory Preface Salutation to Dharma, Artha, and Kama In the beginning the Lord of beings created men and women, and in the form of commandments in one hundred thousand chapters laid down rules for regulating their existence with regard to Dharma, Artha, and Kama.

Footnotes Dharma is acquisition of religious merit, and is fully described in chapter 5, volume 3 of Tallboy's Wheeler's History of India, and in the edicts of Asoka.

Artha is acquisition of wealth and property, etc.

Kama is love, pleasure, and sensual gratification.

You know, the number of killings that have taken place outside India is one point four billion in the last two thousand years.

And the number of deaths in India till the 13th century, only in one case it exceeded one lakh, and that was Ashoka's war, Kalinga war.

Only after the Muslim invasion there was four point five million deaths in this country.

Outside India, one point four billion.

In the sight of God, we should seek to get back to first principles and to determine on a course of action which shall prove us to be worthy citizens of His kingdom.

In making this effort, let us remember those groups of men and women in all the other nations concerned who will be animated by a similar spirit and who believe with us that the fundamental unity of men in the family of God is the one enduring reality, even when we are forced into an apparent denial of it.

Although it would be premature to make any pronouncement upon many aspects of the situation on which we have no sufficient data for reliable judgment, we can and do call ourselves and you to a consideration of certain principles which may safely be enunciated.

One, the conditions which have made this catastrophe possible must be regarded by us as essentially unchristian.

Unfortunately, he adopted from the Muslims the unworkable idea of a sacred language, and his first contributions to the new divine library, for the new Qur'an ultimately became this, were in Arabic.

These were a commentary on the surah of Yusuf, Joseph, and the Arabic Bayan.

The language of these, however, was a barrier to the laity, and so the first believer wrote a letter to the bulb enforcing the necessity of making himself intelligible to all.

This seems to be the true origin of the Persian Bayan.

The Vatsyayana Sutra Introductory Preface Salutation to Dharma, Artha, and Kama In the beginning the Lord of beings created men and women, and in the form of commandments in one hundred thousand chapters laid down rules for regulating their existence with regard to Dharma, Artha, and Kama.

Footnotes Dharma is acquisition of religious merit, and is fully described in chapter 5, volume 3 of Tallboy's Wheeler's History of India, and in the edicts of Asoka.

Artha is acquisition of wealth and property, etc.

Kama is love, pleasure, and sensual gratification.

But let's go way back and consider an Indian who's widely considered the noblest ruler the world has ever seen.

A couple of hundred years before Christ, Ashoka started out as a warrior, as bloody as they come, until he learned about another Indian prince who renounced wealth and power to seek peace, starting with inner peace.

Siddhartha Gautama came to be called the Buddha, the enlightened being.

Emperor Ashoka embraced Buddhism, but he did not decree that others follow him.

Ashoka tolerated all religions and practices and spread Buddhist teachings, not at the point of a sword, but through inscriptions carved on rocks and pillars, many of which we can still visit on their ancient sites throughout the subcontinent from India to Nepal.

Beyond teaching, Ashoka directed his officials to relieve suffering wherever they found it, even in neighboring lands.

That was remarkable for the time and in most times, but folks...

You know which other country has done this? The United States of America.

But even Beyond that, we have examples of Aramaic-speaking Jewish communities in Egypt during the 5th century before the Common Era.

And two centuries later, we have from India examples of Aramaic that show up in the edicts of Ashoka.

And the reason for that was that Aramaic was an extremely widespread commercial language.

It gave the Middle East a koine before we could speak of koine Greek.