India is about to spend a ridiculous $530 million on a statue in the middle of the Arabian sea

[Tibarn]

5 hours ago, Vilander said:

how do you guys honestly spend so much time researching for posts as exhaustive as this. I know you guys are in a war or sorts but i really like both your posting histories( no pun). What field does each of you work in History professor match professor types ?

Thanks, but I'm an amateur in History. I am getting my Master's degree in Biology right now, with a major concentration in Biomedical Sciences and  minor concentration in population ecology. I work in a research lab to help pay my way through my degree and I also serve as a teaching assistant in undergraduate laboratory classes,  so whatever I know of history is only from independent reading of books mostly and the required courses that most US universities make students complete. However, those courses were a while ago, when I was still an undergraduate. 

 

In regards to posts in this thread, I didn't have to research too much, as I took an interest in Ashoka earlier, so the research was already mostly done. What piqued my interest was when I was watching a debate in which Arun Shourie and Amartya Sen were involved in. In the debate, at least in the version I saw, it appeared Sen was given the final statement, and literally said "The two greatest kings in Indian history are Akbar and Ashoka, so Hindus have nothing to be proud of." I had already read Shourie's Eminent Historians , so I wanted to see for myself how great this guy was, or if he was mostly propaganda. I found out most of this information from the Ashokavanda, Mahavamsa, Rock Edicts, and then the books by Romilla Thapar, RK Mookerji, and Charles Allen plus the book Dipvamsa and Mahavamsa by William Gieger. I have copies of the ebooks of all these texts(except the last), so I didn't have to search hard. After reading those sources, it was pretty clear what he actually was like vs what people are "taught". The only further research I have done for this thread didn't take long, as most of the other books weren't completely focused on Ashoka, so I only had to search the ebooks for the relevant portions. (ctrl + F ). Other times I write long posts, it takes much longer.

 

5 hours ago, zen said:

Numbers and Dates: In stead of focusing on accuracy of numbers and dates, may be you could both agree that a "large" number of people died in some specified period

In terms of dates, they are not very important to the overall topic in directly proving Ashoka to be a mass murderer, however, the use of dates has shown the other poster is ignorant of what he speaks or is lying. As someone who stated the Kalingan War was 3-5 years, then claiming it was 2 years, both times not providing sources, one can only state that he is either ignorant or lying. There is no reason to invent dates in a debate.

 

In terms of numbers, they are absolutely essential, especially in terms a recent claim by the other poster. The difference between 1 year(sourced) and the 2-5(unsourced) claimed by the other poster in regards to the length of the war is especially relevant to his claim that Kalinga was able to regenerate a 66.34K military force. In 3-5 years it is possible, in 1 year it is not likely. The numbers are also relevant as Ashoka himself uses numbers. As the reference I provided from RK Mookerji showed, his edict states 100k were killed, 150K were enslaved, and some multiple of 100k were wounded. The size of the Ashokan and Kalingan armies directly impact this. As the sources I provided and the estimations I based on earlier sources showed, there were 62K Kalingan soldiers and 600k Mauryans in the time of Chandragupta. I used the Ashokan military growth rate(calculated from a source) for the estimation of the Kalingan: 640k vs 66.34K. If one takes the ambiguous multiple hundred thousand dead through wounds, it becomes more and more clear that all the dead couldn't be soldiers. The only other type of person is a non-combatant, and thus, innocent, citizens would have been targeted and killed.   The probability of an event happening is essential, in my opinion, to showing what can be considered fact/empirical and what is considered beliefs. 

 

5 hours ago, zen said:

Conversion of Ashoka: Common sense would suggest that one would not convert or accept a religion on the spur of the moment so Ashoka is likely to have some sort of understanding of Buddhism (or be a Buddhist) before Kalinga. One needs to know what to convert into to convert .... May be after Kalinga, he decided to get more serious about it (implementation)

The conversion isn't really important to me. Although multiple sources I have provided showed that he likely, at least nominally, converted to Buddhism before the war. It is relevant if one recognizes that his forefathers are noted to follow Hindu war law, where noncombatants aren't targeted during combat. If he was Buddhist, then there is no reason to assume he would follow Hindu law. I provided a source showing that he indeed break tradition and engaged in Total War. 

 

I really have no issues with Buddhism. The other poster brought religion into this when calling Shivaji a "Hindu Marauder," implying that his Hinduism had something to do with his Marauding. He also tried to wear a mask of neutrality regarding religion by stating that he was an Atheist, when earlier, in another thread, he claimed he was a Buddhist. Unfortunately for him  I remembered. Of course he didn't provide a source for stating "Shivaji was a Hindu Marauder" either.   On the other hand, I provided sources showing that Ashoka was indeed involved in religion-related murder. 

6 hours ago, zen said:

Mass Murder vs Slavery: May be slavery for many is as good as being dead  

Slavery serves as an auxiliary point to mass murder. The argument that Ashoka was a mass murderer depends on either of 2 branches of proof:

1st Branch (Kalinga War) relies on: 

1) Civilians died during the Kalinga War and

2)  Civilians weren't collateral damage, but were rather part of a waged total war.

2nd Branch(Outside War): only relies on:

1) Ashoka killing people outside of war time.

 

Slavery is the classic, kill two birds with one stone, in regards to the 1st branch, as slavery helps confirm 2), there is no way to take humans as slaves without targeting them, and 1) statistically and logically , it is almost impossible for people to have been enslaved without some being killed during capture, some killed fighting against capture, and some dying during the transport of 150k slaves over 800km from the rough area of Kalinga in Orissa and the heartlands of Ashoka's empire in Bihar. 

 

6 hours ago, zen said:

Some good points made by both of you. However, there are a few things you could agree upon to move the debate forward.

I appreciate your attempts to drive this conversation forward, but I respectfully disagree with the characterization of this as a debate. A formal debate typically requires two participants who both use objective methods and sources to counter each other on a topic. There should also, ideally, be an objective judge. 

 

I'm afraid the other poster is only arguing, not debating, that too while attempting to invalidate all sources of information that don't confirm his set view point. This is the equivalent of a batsman, who claims to average 100, but he only comes out to bat if the opposing team spots him 99 runs.  

 

I would characterize this more as someone repeating a pair of composition and double standard fallacies to discredit all the numerous historians and sources that have come to the conclusion that he murdered people outside of battle, killed people based on religion, murdered his brothers, set prostitutes on fire, and targeted civilians  during the war with Kalinga while simultaneously  cherry-picking  the one source he likes is fact .  

Quote

The fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole (or even of every proper part).

 

If Ashoka was Muslim and he killed civilians during/after a battle, if he rewarded people murdered Jain monks who painted a picture of the Prophet Mohammed, or if he banned Hindu festivals. I believe nearly every person on this forum would conclude that he was a bigot and savage. 

 

 On my end, this "debate" is settled. The only sources provided, support my contentions that he was a mass murderer and also a religious fundamentalist. I am only carrying on to practice my skills at pointing out logical fallacies.  As far as I'm concerned, this is no different than talking to a padosi who thinks that the surgical strikes didn't happen.  

[surajmal]

@Tibarn, You have some stamina. Radish was outed as an uberbong sometime ago. Don't take him seriously. Trolls are to be trolled with, not reasoned. 

[zen]

14 hours ago, Tibarn said:

What piqued my interest was when I was watching a debate in which Arun Shourie and Amartya Sen were involved in. In the debate, at least in the version I saw, it appeared Sen was given the final statement, and literally said "The two greatest kings in Indian history are Akbar and Ashoka, so Hindus have nothing to be proud of."

That is a surprising comment. Appears as if Sen forgot about the likes of Chandragupta who actually founded the Mauryan empire .... I am in the process of reading Dalai Lama's Book of Wisdom and it appears as if Buddhism and Hinduism are related as far as the basic concepts are concerned. Hinduism probably has "added" many layers to it much like how Win/Mac OS add various layers, while Buddhism appears like Android/IOS .... When the layers are peeled off, there are a lot of similarities .... The mantras chanted by Buddhist Monk tend to have "om" in them, and Buddha himself may have chanted "om" while he meditated 

 

 

 

 

 

[Muloghonto]

22 minutes ago, zen said:

That is a surprising comment. Appears as if Sen forgot about the likes of Chandragupta who actually founded the Mauryan empire .... I am in the process of reading Dalai Lama's Book of Wisdom and it appears as if Buddhism and Hinduism are related as far as the basic concepts are concerned. Hinduism probably has "added" many layers to it much like how Win/Mac OS add various layers, while Buddhism appears like Android/IOS .... When the layers are peeled off, there are a lot of similarities .... The mantras chanted by Buddhist Monk tend to have "om" in them, and Buddha himself may have chanted "om" while he meditated 

 

 

 

 

 

Ofcourse- Buddha came from the Vedic world. Hinduism as we understand it today, mostly didnt exist 2500 years ago. Hinduism back then, was more oriented towards Vedic ritualism. So imagine a religion that is less devoted to 'the various form/power of God' and more oriented towards 'Surya namaskaar, then this puja, that puja, the purification ritual, the pancha-devta food ritual, ritual, ritual' etc. 

It is hard to say, strictly speaking, which religion/philosophy invented what, since Buddhism, Jainism & Hinduism have shared a common, cyclical view of the universe and the Bhakti movement essentially agglomerated the various belief systems into Hinduism. The biggest difference perhaps between Hinduism & Buddhism/Jainism, is that Hinduism believes in the soul, while the other two do not. 

 

PS: perhaps the greatest of them all is Samudragupta. As i noted earlier, Indian imperialism failed, because our civilization put all the stock in 'good, strong leader' and not in institutionalizing governance. So for every 1 competent administrator like Ashoka, Samudragupta, Devapala, Harsha, etc. we got dozens of incompetent emperors. If you read the Arthashastra, the ultimate book on statecraft from Indian mentality, it recommends 5 hours sleep for the emperor and like 2-3 hours in the harem/day, with rest of the time filled with meetings with various officers and directing them. 
Samudragupta was the first we know of, who recognized the failings/limitations of this system when translated to humongous empires and instead came up with Indian feudalism : rule a more manageable sized territory directly, then vassalize all the other kingdoms.  It provides better manageability for a system lacking institutions and relying solely on personal drive/power. 
This model of 'rule a manageable sized core territory, vassalize the rest' persisted for another 1000 years throughout India till the Muslim conquests. 

Edited January 10, 2017 by Muloghonto

[Vilander]

23 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

I am simply saying how historians see history. When we see stelae of Egyptian kings and Assyrian emperors, they don't go 'hmm, who knows if it was implemented or not', they see it as 'if it didn't happen and is just a crock of lies, why didn't people deface it over the years ?'.

If you start questioning archaeological evidence, then whole history falls apart. Jews were not massacred & deported by the Assyrians then, Egyptian kings didnt build the pyramids - they just 'claimed glory for it',  etc etc.

See how slippery that slope is ?

 

basically even a lie if well preserved is truth.

[Vilander]

2 hours ago, zen said:

That is a surprising comment. Appears as if Sen forgot about the likes of Chandragupta who actually founded the Mauryan empire .... I am in the process of reading Dalai Lama's Book of Wisdom and it appears as if Buddhism and Hinduism are related as far as the basic concepts are concerned. Hinduism probably has "added" many layers to it much like how Win/Mac OS add various layers, while Buddhism appears like Android/IOS .... When the layers are peeled off, there are a lot of similarities .... The mantras chanted by Buddhist Monk tend to have "om" in them, and Buddha himself may have chanted "om" while he meditated 

 

 

 

 

 

True and besides one should not really care what anyone says about this, Ashoka was dharmic, that all that matters. He and even Akhbar were inherently Indian.

[Vilander]

2 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

Hinduism believes in the soul, while the other two do not. 

 

I remember seeing a documentary on origins of universe where Prof.Stephen Hawkings gives his rebuttal to causal chain and existence of a creator without going into details but browsing through the matter anti matter case and nothingness and the non existence of 'before big bang', very powerful not very exhaustive though, but fundamentally what he says resonates with Annata concept of Buddhism ( no self), for me the problem is how do they find peace when they accept that at death we just end, and after the end there is no rebirth. Its the last great comfort which is snatched away, Hawkings has no such problems he just feels fortunate to be alive and be able to observe the universe nice chap.

[Muloghonto]

39 minutes ago, Vilander said:

basically even a lie if well preserved is truth.

We have no way of knowing what is a lie, what isn't when it comes to history of an individual. That is why the order of precedence exists in terms of evidence for historians. Because they see it less likely that you are going to get away with BS carved in stone, standing there for all to see for centuries, versus a book tucked away in a monastery somewhere.

Its a false claim that Ashoka built his inscriptions in middle of nowhere. Most of his inscriptions either sit right next to a major city of his time (Kaushambi, Vaishali, Pataliputra, Taxila, Kandahar, Sarnath, Sanchi, Amravati, Dhauli, Girnar, etc) and most of them are surrounded by extensive remains of Stupas, buildings, etc. indicating that it was a well used & well populated site. 

Only thing we can say for sure, historically speaking, are civilization trends. Such as Crusades happened- not because we have books on it, but because we see European made material turning up in Jerusalem for that period, in quantities far surpassing trade volume. 

Or that Indus valley civilization collapsed around 1800 BC because their style of city-building, artwork & material goods disappear. 

Or that Roman Empire conquered western Europe around 50 BC, because we see Roman style baths, city-layout,road building etc. proliferate in those parts of the world.

basically those type of civilization trends, backed by archaeology, we can be 100% sure of.

But did Augustus Caesar do all that he claimed to do ? Or Ashoka ? Or Shivaji ? There is an inherent level of ambiguity in them all and we take them all to be true on face value, with the order of evidence in mind. So if there is a contradiction of evidence, the type of evidence presented in the higher order of precedence, becomes the default.

 

The reason why Ashokan history suffers from spurious accounts from Divyavadana, Ashokavadana etc. and not exclusively based on inscriptional evidence, is because until 5-10 years ago, there was ambiguity if Ashoka actually erected those inscriptions or if it was someone else. 

This is because, in almost all the inscriptions, the name 'Ashoka' is absent, it is 'Devanampriya, Piyadassi'  (for those who don't speak Sanskrit-derived languages, aka our southern brethren, it means 'beloved of the Gods, their favourite slave(of the Gods)'. )
While the written history of Ashoka, him sending missions all over the world, Greeks mentioning Chandragupta (Sandrocottus) all line up well to make the inscriptions from Ashoka, there was uncertainty about it. 

However, less than 10 years ago, further excavations around Dhauli (Orissa) has thrown up an inscription, which mentions the phrase 'Devanampriya Piyadassi Ashoka Maurya', which definitively makes it Ashoka. 

 

So current day historians are revising their views of Ashoka, because now, the order of precedence of the evidence matters decisively and whenever Dipavamsa/Mahavamsa contradicts the inscriptions, the inscription wins. So thats why recent historians don't see him as someone who killed Ajivikas, because the inscriptions themselves state that he donated a cave-complex to the Ajivaks. 

Edited January 10, 2017 by Muloghonto

[Muloghonto]

3 minutes ago, Vilander said:

I remember seeing a documentary on origins of universe where Prof.Stephen Hawkings gives his rebuttal to causal chain and existence of a creator without going into details but browsing through the matter anti matter case and nothingness and the non existence of 'before big bang', very powerful not very exhaustive though, but fundamentally what he says resonates with Annata concept of Buddhism ( no self), for me the problem is how do they find peace when they accept that at death we just end, and after the end there is no rebirth. Its the last great comfort which is snatched away, Hawkings has no such problems he just feels fortunate to be alive and be able to observe the universe nice chap.

I had the same question and I asked a buddhist monk about it - his answer was that since rule #1 in Buddhism is to 'shed desire', 'desiring peace eternally/after death' is a desire itself that needs to be shed. They see it as 'peace comes from enlightenment, which means to know cause-effect & let go of attachments. if you worry about whats after death, then its an attachment and you need to work on that'. 

 

Btw, people misunderstand big-bang when they think nothing existed before big bang. Space & time didn't exist before big bang. But matter did, since pre-Big Bang is defined as a singularity of infinite mass that exploded (Big Bang) and created space-time continuum. But matter existed in the form of the infinite mass singularity, though what type of matter it was, we have no idea, as the immediate timeframe after Big Bang (known as Plank's age) is a time of sub-atomic particles that we don't know a whole lot about.

 

[zen]

2 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

The biggest difference perhaps between Hinduism & Buddhism/Jainism, is that Hinduism believes in the soul, while the other two do not

 

11 minutes ago, Vilander said:

I remember seeing a documentary on origins of universe where Prof.Stephen Hawkings gives his rebuttal to causal chain and existence of a creator without going into details but browsing through the matter anti matter case and nothingness and the non existence of 'before big bang', very powerful not very exhaustive though, but fundamentally what he says resonates with Annata concept of Buddhism ( no self), for me the problem is how do they find peace when they accept that at death we just end, and after the end there is no rebirth. Its the last great comfort which is snatched away, Hawkings has no such problems he just feels fortunate to be alive and be able to observe the universe nice chap.

Isn't Dalai Lama supposed to be a reincarnation? 

 

 

[Muloghonto]

1 minute ago, zen said:

 

Isn't Dalai Lama supposed to be a reincarnation? 

 

 

Depends on whom you ask. Laypeople see Dalai Llama as a reincarnated being.

Monks see him as not a reincarnated person, but a set of attributes that repeats itself over time.

 

[zen]

2 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

Depends on whom you ask. Laypeople see Dalai Llama as a reincarnated being.

Monks see him as not a reincarnated person, but a set of attributes that repeats itself over time.

If it depends up on whom we ask, than things become open to interpretation. And then there is not much difference b/w key concepts of Hinduism and Buddhism. 

 

I would ask Dalai Lama -> http://www.dalailama.com/biography/reincarnation 

 

[Muloghonto]

4 minutes ago, zen said:

If it depends up on whom we ask, than things become open to interpretation. And then there is not much difference b/w key concepts of Hinduism and Buddhism. 

 

I would ask Dalai Lama -> http://www.dalailama.com/biography/reincarnation 

 

Yes, there is different interpretations of it. The Dalai Llama doesnt represent all Buddhists btw - he represents Vajrayana Buddhism. Mahayana or Theravada for example, stick to the principle of annata and reject reincarnation mostly- though there is some ambiguity there as well.

 

Buddhism, like Hinduism, is not about blind conformation to one ideology, so they don't have a tradition of killing off people who disagree with them, ala Christians or Muslims. So like Hinduism, there are different interpretations of buddhism and different schools of thought.

There isn't much difference between Hinduism & Buddhism, largely because of Bhakti movement that integrated the Buddha & Buddhist teachings into Hinduism. The core message of Buddhism though, resonates more powerfully with empirical ideas of the universe, than Hinduism. The ritual overdose of Hinduism is nothing more than a self-serving employment scheme by the Brahmins, who derived income from doing those rituals. 

[zen]

3 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

Yes, there is different interpretations of it. The Dalai Llama doesnt represent all Buddhists btw - he represents Vajrayana Buddhism. Mahayana or Theravada for example, stick to the principle of annata and reject reincarnation mostly- though there is some ambiguity there as well.

 

Buddhism, like Hinduism, is not about blind conformation to one ideology, so they don't have a tradition of killing off people who disagree with them, ala Christians or Muslims. So like Hinduism, there are different interpretations of buddhism and different schools of thought.

There isn't much difference between Hinduism & Buddhism, largely because of Bhakti movement that integrated the Buddha & Buddhist teachings into Hinduism. The core message of Buddhism though, resonates more powerfully with empirical ideas of the universe, than Hinduism. The ritual overdose of Hinduism is nothing more than a self-serving employment scheme by the Brahmins, who derived income from doing those rituals. 

I like to read Dalai Lama's books to understand key concepts of Hinduism .... Yes, Hinduism has become bloated with constant "updates". However, the key concepts of a religion should be separated from the ritual overdose esp. those invented as self serving employment schemes. The rituals are not mandatory but options provided 

 

At times, religion is also used as a means to promote ideas for the well being of a community. For e.g. in the absence of science as we know today, an idea such as "if you eat at night, ghosts will come"  could be spread so that people stop eating in the dark (no electricity). Eating in dark (and when the utensils could be in open) could mean inability to spot contaminated food resulting in to sickness. Explaining the concept scientifically may not spread like a virus. Mix it with the ghost stories, and it could spread. People would also adhere to it out of fear. Now if such a concept turns in to a ritual in an era of electricity, who is to blame? The religion or those who fail to understand the idea behind the concept and pass such things off as meaningless rituals when it was never a ritual?

 

 

 

 

[Muloghonto]

4 minutes ago, zen said:

I like to read Dalai Lama's books to understand key concepts of Hinduism .... Yes, Hinduism has become bloated with constant "updates". However, the key concepts of a religion should be separated from the ritual overdose esp. those invented as self serving employment schemes. The rituals are not mandatory but options provided 

 

At times, religion is also used as a means to promote ideas for the well being of a community. For e.g. in the absence of science as we know today, an idea such as "if you eat at night, ghosts will come"  could be spread so that people stop eating in the dark (no electricity). Eating in dark (and when the utensils could be in open) could mean inability to spot contaminated food resulting in to sickness. Explaining the concept scientifically may not spread like a virus. Mix it with the ghost stories, and it could spread. People would also adhere to it out of fear. Now if such a concept turns in to a ritual in an era of electricity, who is to blame? The religion or those who fail to understand the idea behind the concept and pass such things off as meaningless rituals when it was never a ritual?

 

 

 

 

You make valid points, but this is the difference between Dharmic religions and Abrahamic ones. We see it as 'good karma/bad karma' in introducing 'easy to understand but BS reasons for doing things the right way' and make it a 'you will benefit/lose out for this' scenario. Abrahamics make it a 'God will be pleased/displeased' scenario, thus conformity is a must.

Besides, i am not so much as panning lifestyle mumbo-jumbo - i realize that those are more effective in pre-education era via BS 'ghosts and stuff' than with reasoning. We have a similar tradition amongst Bengali hindus, where it is seen as 'unclean' to eat fish between Durga Puja and Kali Puja. Perhaps the big reason for this is, Bengal's favourite fish is Hilsa and as it happens, in late september to October, Hilsa spawns & the young ones migrate back to the seas ( mostly during September-October-early november, though a much lesser volume journeys back to the seas up to early February). We call it 'Khoka Eelish', which means 'baby Hilsa'. So perhaps sustainability was a bigger issue in mind and some dude thousands of years ago realized that uneducated, illiterate masses would care more about 'pavitra/a-pavitra' than trying to convince them that sustainability of Eelish is at stake.

I am talking more about Vedic ritualism, where your entire day is filled in Puja/chanting towards one God or another and if there is any problem in life, undertake a massive puja to please a number of Gods to make what you want come true.

 

[zen]

1 hour ago, Muloghonto said:

I am talking more about Vedic ritualism, where your entire day is filled in Puja/chanting towards one God or another and if there is any problem in life, undertake a massive puja to please a number of Gods to make what you want come true.

Note that there is nothing wrong with performing Poojas if those participating in it prefer to do so. God is looked upon as the father figure .... Now if you are stressed out, it is likely that you would speak to an elder. Even if the elder does not do anything, talking to him gives you relief and may be even confidence to take on the challenge as you may feel that someone is there to watch your back. And that renewed confidence could help you to overcome your stress (the situation that put you in stress) .... And if you are doing a massive puja, chances are that poor are getting fed too 

 

Also note that there are rituals in Buddhism too - http://tibet.net/2017/01/dalai-lama-performs-pre-kalchakra-rituals/

 

 

Quote

Besides, i am not so much as panning lifestyle mumbo-jumbo - i realize that those are more effective in pre-education era via BS 'ghosts and stuff' than with reasoning. We have a similar tradition amongst Bengali hindus, where it is seen as 'unclean' to eat fish between Durga Puja and Kali Puja. Perhaps the big reason for this is, Bengal's favourite fish is Hilsa and as it happens, in late september to October, Hilsa spawns & the young ones migrate back to the seas ( mostly during September-October-early november, though a much lesser volume journeys back to the seas up to early February). We call it 'Khoka Eelish', which means 'baby Hilsa'. So perhaps sustainability was a bigger issue in mind and some dude thousands of years ago realized that uneducated, illiterate masses would care more about 'pavitra/a-pavitra' than trying to convince them that sustainability of Eelish is at stake

Yes, that is a good example of religion being used to drive sustainability .... May be there is a similar reason as to why some trees are considered holy

Edited January 10, 2017 by zen

[Vilander]

1 hour ago, Muloghonto said:

We have no way of knowing what is a lie, what isn't when it comes to history of an individual. That is why the order of precedence exists in terms of evidence for historians. Because they see it less likely that you are going to get away with BS carved in stone, standing there for all to see for centuries, versus a book tucked away in a monastery somewhere.

Its a false claim that Ashoka built his inscriptions in middle of nowhere. Most of his inscriptions either sit right next to a major city of his time (Kaushambi, Vaishali, Pataliputra, Taxila, Kandahar, Sarnath, Sanchi, Amravati, Dhauli, Girnar, etc) and most of them are surrounded by extensive remains of Stupas, buildings, etc. indicating that it was a well used & well populated site. 

Only thing we can say for sure, historically speaking, are civilization trends. Such as Crusades happened- not because we have books on it, but because we see European made material turning up in Jerusalem for that period, in quantities far surpassing trade volume. 

Or that Indus valley civilization collapsed around 1800 BC because their style of city-building, artwork & material goods disappear. 

Or that Roman Empire conquered western Europe around 50 BC, because we see Roman style baths, city-layout,road building etc. proliferate in those parts of the world.

basically those type of civilization trends, backed by archaeology, we can be 100% sure of.

But did Augustus Caesar do all that he claimed to do ? Or Ashoka ? Or Shivaji ? There is an inherent level of ambiguity in them all and we take them all to be true on face value, with the order of evidence in mind. So if there is a contradiction of evidence, the type of evidence presented in the higher order of precedence, becomes the default.

 

The reason why Ashokan history suffers from spurious accounts from Divyavadana, Ashokavadana etc. and not exclusively based on inscriptional evidence, is because until 5-10 years ago, there was ambiguity if Ashoka actually erected those inscriptions or if it was someone else. 

This is because, in almost all the inscriptions, the name 'Ashoka' is absent, it is 'Devanampriya, Piyadassi'  (for those who don't speak Sanskrit-derived languages, aka our southern brethren, it means 'beloved of the Gods, their favourite slave(of the Gods)'. )
While the written history of Ashoka, him sending missions all over the world, Greeks mentioning Chandragupta (Sandrocottus) all line up well to make the inscriptions from Ashoka, there was uncertainty about it. 

However, less than 10 years ago, further excavations around Dhauli (Orissa) has thrown up an inscription, which mentions the phrase 'Devanampriya Piyadassi Ashoka Maurya', which definitively makes it Ashoka. 

 

So current day historians are revising their views of Ashoka, because now, the order of precedence of the evidence matters decisively and whenever Dipavamsa/Mahavamsa contradicts the inscriptions, the inscription wins. So thats why recent historians don't see him as someone who killed Ajivikas, because the inscriptions themselves state that he donated a cave-complex to the Ajivaks. 

very interesting post, yeah it makes logical sense to believe that edicts have more historical record value than a personal account. 

An other interesting point being 'Devanampriya, Piyadassi' - in Tamil 'vada mozhi' -> Devan - God , piriyam - affection, dassi - salve, so some random tamil/kannada fruit seller will make out the meaning of that word actually.

 

[Vilander]

59 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

Besides, i am not so much as panning lifestyle mumbo-jumbo - i realize that those are more effective in pre-education era via BS 'ghosts and stuff' than with reasoning. We have a similar tradition amongst Bengali hindus, where it is seen as 'unclean' to eat fish between Durga Puja and Kali Puja. Perhaps the big reason for this is, Bengal's favourite fish is Hilsa and as it happens, in late september to October, Hilsa spawns & the young ones migrate back to the seas ( mostly during September-October-early november, though a much lesser volume journeys back to the seas up to early February). We call it 'Khoka Eelish', which means 'baby Hilsa'. So perhaps sustainability was a bigger issue in mind and some dude thousands of years ago realized that uneducated, illiterate masses would care more about 'pavitra/a-pavitra' than trying to convince them that sustainability of Eelish is at stake

actually this is how vedic hinduism probably transformed to puranic hinduism, as more and more people started commentary on right and wrong, with the vedic texts themselves which were the apparent source slowly fading through lack of translation and lost to time.

[Vilander]

2 hours ago, zen said:

 

Isn't Dalai Lama supposed to be a reincarnation? 

 

 

funny i realized that too, then how do they explain reincarnation with out a self ? may be Tibetan Buddhism is actually Tibetan Hinduism.

[zen]

1 minute ago, Vilander said:

funny i realized that too, then how do they explain reincarnation with out a self ? may be Tibetan Buddhism is actually Tibetan Hinduism.

I actually like to read Dalai Lama's work to understand Hinduism .... Below is the link that explains his views on reincarnation:

 

http://www.dalailama.com/biography/reincarnation