Ashoka in myDiary of 2,300 years ago?!? Re:233B.C.


For some generations
after the death of Gautama,
these high and noble Buddhist teachings,
this first plain teaching that the highest good for man is
the subjugation of self,
made comparatively little headway
in the world?
THEN
they conquered
the imagination of one of the greatest monarchs
the world has
ever seen!
~
We have
already mentioned
how Alex the Great came down into India
and fought with Porus upon the Indus.
It is related by the Greek historians that a certain Chandragupta Maurya
came into Alexander's camp and tried to persuade him to go on to
the river Ganges and conquer ALL India.
Alexander could not do this
because of the refusal of his Macedonians to go farther into what was
for them an unknown world,
and later on {in 321 B.C.} Chandragupta was able to secure
the help of various hill tribes
and realise his dream without
Greek help ...
HE built up an empire in north India,
and was presently {303 B.C.} able to attack Seleucus in the Punjab
and drive the last vestige of greek power
out of India.
HIS son extended this new empire,
his grandson Ashoka,
the monarch of whom we now have to tell,
found himself in 264 B.C.,
ruling from Afghanistan
to Madras ...
~~
Ashoka
was at first disposed
to follow the example of his father and grandfather
and complete the conquest of the Indian peninsula ...
He invaded Kalinga {255 B.C.},
a country on the east coast of Madras,
he was successful in his military operations and
- alone among conquerors -
he was so disgusted by the cruelty and horror of war
that he renounced it.
HE would have no more of it!
He adopted the peaceful doctrines of Buddhism and declared
that henceforth the conquests should be
conquests of
religion ...
~~~
HIS reign
for eight-and-twenty years
was one of the brightest interludes in the troubled history of mankind!?!
He organised a great digging of wells in India
and the planting of trees
for shade ...
He founded hospitals
and public gardens and gardens for the growing of medicinal herbs ........
He created a ministry for the care of the aborigines
and subject races of India ........
He made provisions for the education of women!
He made vast benefactions to the Buddhist teaching orders,
and tried to stimulate them to a better
and more energetic criticism
of their own accumulated
literature ...
FOR corruptions and superstitious accretions
had accumulated very speedily upon the pure and simple teaching
of the great Indian master.
Missionaries went from Ashoka to Kashmir,
to Persia, to Ceylon, and
Alexandria
....
~~~~




SUCH
was Ashoka,
greatest of kings!
HE was far in advance of his age.
He left no prince and no organisation of men to carry on his work,
and within a century of his death
the great days of his reign had become a glorious memory
in a shattered and decaying India .............
The priestly cast of the Brahmins, the highest and most priviliged caste
in the Indian social body,
has always been opposed to the frank and open teaching of Buddha.
Gradually they undermined the Buddhist influence in the land.
The old monstrous gods,
the innumerable cults of Hinduism,
resumed their sway ...
CASTE became more rigorous and complicated!
For long centuries
Buddhism and Brahmanism flourished side by side,
and then slowly Buddhism decayed and Brahmanism in a multitude of forms replaced it ....................
But beyond the confines of India
and the realms of caste
Buddhism spread -
until it had won China and Siam and Burma and Japan,
countries in which it is predominant
to this day ...
~~~~~
verliefdliefdesverdrietverliefd
Maybe in the next few days
we'll have to tell again of "Confucius" & Lao Tse?
Huns, Mongols, Turks & Tartars ....
Rome & Carthage ....
Rome & China ....
Huge empires and 'common people'?
Point Zero and 'ourselves' ....
OUR myDi-SELVES ....
YOU & ME ....
IF still alive and allowed to do so,
we certainly will!
liefdesverdrietgemeenverwardgaap!bah!nahnahverdrietigcool!erg vrolijkknipoogvrolijkverliefd
engel
05 jul 2004 - bewerkt op 11 jan 2008 - meld ongepast verhaal
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Asih, man, 81 jaar
   
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