9781422283530

India to 1001 ce

Ashoka Explores his Kingdom Ashoka traveled widely through the empire listening to people’s opinions. This was highly unusual at a time when emperors were only really seen outside their palaces to go hunting or to go into battle. Ashoka tried to make people’s lives easier, by building roads and rest houses, setting up free hospitals and veterinary clinics, bathing tanks, drinking places for cattle and planting shady trees.

A statue of the Buddha preaching at Sarnath.

The Teachings of the Buddha The Buddha, or “Enlightened One,” was born in about 560 bce . His real name was Siddharta Gautama and he was the son of a king. Siddharta lived in the royal palace, surrounded by luxury. But he became more and more dissatisfied with life and, at the age of twenty-nine, decided to give up all his belongings, leave the palace and roam the world in search of truth. He found that the best path to follow to the truth was one of meditation, non- violence and moderation, and these elements form the basis of his teachings. The Buddha wandered throughout India for forty- four years, preaching his message. Buddhism had great appeal for ordinary people. It had no caste system (see box on page 9) so they did not feel downtrodden and the Buddha preached in the popular, local language, rather than Sanskrit, the language of the upper castes.

A shoka’s famous Lion Capital can be seen on India’s modern-day banknotes.

The Sarnath Lion Capital The four-lion capital (sculpture on top of a column), which is a symbol of the modern republic of India, originally stood on top of one of Ashoka’s finest pillars. It stood in the deer park at Sarnath, near Varanasi, where the Buddha preached his first sermon (called the Turning of the Wheel of Law). The four lions look in four directions, so that their roars reach the four corners of the Earth just as the Buddha’s teachings do. Below them are four royal animals—the horse, bull, lion and elephant—and four wheels, representing the Buddha’s teachings. The lions originally supported a huge wheel, the symbol of Buddhism.

T he Great Stupa (Buddhist shrine) at Sarnath.

13