Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/25

years of the reign of His Sacred and Gracious Majesty King Asoka. The monkish chroniclers of India and Ceylon, eager to enhance the glory of Buddhism, represent the young king as having been a monster of cruelty before his conversion, and then known as Asoka the Wicked, in contradistinction to Asoka the Pious, his designation after conversion. But such tales, specimens of which will be found in Chapters VI and VII, are of no historical value, and should be treated simply as edifying romances. Tradition probably is right in stating that Asoka followed the religion of the Brahmans in his early days, with a special devotion to Siva, and we may assume that he led the life of an ordinary Hindu Râjâ of his time. We know, because he has told us so himself, that he then had no objection to sharing in the pleasures of the chase, or in the free use of animal food, while he permitted his subjects at the capital to indulge in merry-makings accompanied by feasting, wine, and song^[1]. Whether or not he waged any wars in those years we do not know. There is no reason to suppose that his dominions were less than those of his grandfather and father, and equally little reason for supposing that he made additions to them. In his inscriptions he counts his 'regnal years' from the date of his consecration, which may be taken as B.C. 269^[2], and

1. Rock Edicts I, VIII.
2. The earliest dated inscriptions are of the thirteenth, and the latest (Pillar Edict VII) of the twenty-eighth 'regnal year,' corresponding respectively with B. C. 257 and 242. The Minor