Aoka and the Decline of the Mauryas by Romila Thapar

Review by: P. H. L. Eggermont

Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 82, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1962), pp. 419-421
Published by: American Oriental Society
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419

Reviews of Books
Therefore no doubt is possible regarding the interpretation of the words iamo . . . aci in VIII. 3, 32:
"hamut is added to ac when this follows upon
ham" is correct in accordance with rule I.1,67,
and not "iAamutis added to ham when ac follows
upon the latter 13 according to rule I. 1, 66.
Rules like VIII. 3, 32 seem to show that there
are cases of conflict outside of the section I. 4, 1II. 2, 38. This speaks in favour of the native
ydn (no. 70 in F. Kielhorn's edition of NAgojIbhat a's
Paribhasendugekhara)
laying down that rule I. 1, 67
supersedes rule I. 1, 66, when both, a term in the ablative case and another in the locative case, are quoted or
valid in the same rule, is an out-come of rule I. 4, 2.
For a possible objection against the above interpretation and its refutation, cf. F. Kielhorn's translation of
the ParibhAsendugekhara p. 16 f.
13 The two translations of namo . . . aci have been
quoted from Kielhorn's translation of the ParibhAsenduAekhara p. 361.

Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas. By

ROMILATHAPAR. Pp. 283 (6 plates; 4 maps).
Oxford: OXFORDUNIVERSITY PRESS, 1961.

grammarians who declared rule I. 4, 2 to be valid

in the whole Paninian grammar.
I am far from regarding my foregoing remarks
as the last word in this matter. They are just to
launch a discussion on this question fraught with
many difficulties.
p. 21, p. 33: At two places the punctuation of
Kielhorn's Mahdbhasya-edition has been altered.
These alterations are, in my opinion, not absolutely necessary. For p. 21, cf. Kaiyata's Pradipa
on the passage concerned.
In conclusion I wish to state that I regard Dr.
Shefts booklet as a promising achievement. It is
to be hoped that it will incite others to undertake
similar detailed studies which are highly useful
because they further our understanding of the
Indian grammarians and their way of thinking.
ROBERT BIRW?E
UNIVERSITY

OF COLOGNE,

GERMANY

The four preceding chapters can conveniently

be divided into two groups. Chapters I (The
background and the sources, p. 1-20) and II
(Early life, accession, and chronology of the reign
Since the last monograph on Asoka was pub- of Asoka, p. 20-54) mainly deal with chronolished by B. M. Barua (Asoka and His Inscrip- logical problems. Chapters III (Society and ecotions, Calcutta, 1946) fifteen years have passed nomic activity, p. 55-93) and IV (Internal adduring which period a considerable amount of ministration and foreign relations, p. 94-136) pave
books and papers have been written that have the way for the arguments used in chapter V.
thrown more light on particular aspects of the
This chapter is extremely engaging and proves
Mauryan age. For that reason a new monograph that the author, notwithstanding the defects in the
on the subject was very much desired.
two opening chapters, has aimed at a general conMiss Romila Thapar has partly succeeded in cept which must surely be considered a valuable
accomplishing this difficult task. In a positive contribution to Asoka studies. I quote a few
sense her book is to be preferred to earlier mono- conclusions:
graphs because the Asokan policy has been inter- The
empire, administered by an efficient bureaucracy,
preted with a view to the social, economic and extensively covered by good communications,
and under
cultural trends of the Mauryan period; moreover, control of a powerful ruler, was probably as centralized
the distribution of the material over the chapters as was possible during that period. . . . By moving
as well as the general structure of the book are to away from orthodox Brahmanism though not opposing
it, by giving open support to Buddhism and certain
be praised. The negative element is, undoubtedly, other sects
such as Ajivikas, he was seeking the potential
the superficial treatment of the chronology of support of non-orthodox elements which may eventually
Asoka's reign. The most important part of the have succeeded in weaning the people away from orthobook and the gist of Romila Thapar's reinterpreta- doxy, and in the end making his own principles more
tion of Asoka's significance as a man and a mon- acceptable to the populace . . . (p. 144).
arch is to be found in chapter V: " The policy of
The problem of what has been the purport of
Dhamma " (p. 137-181).
Asoka's Dharma. whether it was Buddha-Dharma

420

Journal of the American Oriental Society, 82.3 (1962)

or Raja-Dharma or, eventually, the general principle acknowledgedby all the sects, is solved by Miss
Thapar as follows:
We are of opinion that Dharma was AMoka's own invention. It may have borrowed from Buddhist and Hindu
thought, but it was in essence an attempt on the part
of the king to suggest a way of life which was both
practical and convenient, as well as being highly moral
(p. 149).

The two last chapters must be considered an

appendix to the history of Asoka; chapter VI deals
with the chronology of the later Mauryas (p. 182196) and chapter VII goes into the reasons for
the decline of the Mauryas (p. 197-212) This
decline is attributed to the top-heavy administration and the absence of any national consciousness.
There are six supplements to the book, containing studies on the date of the Arthasastra, the title
of Asoka, the geographical locations of the edicts,
pottery and coins of the Mauryan period, a translation of the edicts and a survey of Mauryan art.
These supplements will be useful to students who
want to occupy themselves with the study of the
Mauryan period.
As to the solution of the chronological problem
Romila Thapar makes two fundamental mistakes:
1) She is arbitrarily mixing up the data of the
Puranas and the Ceylonese Pali sources. 2) By
over-simplifying she does not take into account the
extremely complicated way the chronological
tradition has come down to us. Her theory is,
therefore, not connected with this tradition which
is known to have been the result of the construction of at least five anonymous authors (see P. H.
L. Eggermont, The chronology of the reign of
Asoka Moriya, Leiden, 1956, p. 164). At p. 15,
for example, Romila Thapar gives two chronological possibilities. In possibility I the datum of the
28 years' reign of Bindusara, Asoka's father, has
been combined with a Buddha era beginning at the
epoch of 486, B. C. This cannot possibly be done,
because the datum of those 28 years of reign derives from a Ceylonese tradition that combines it
with the Parinirvdna year of 483, B. C. In possibility II the author combines the Parinirvdna year
of 483 B. C. with the datum of the 25 years' reign of
Bindusdra. This cannot be done either, becausethe
datum of the 25 years of reign derivesfrom a different source, the Purdna; the Purdnas have lists of
kings that differ from those of the Ceylonese Pali
source, so that they ought not be combined with a

Parinirvana year derived from a Ceylonese source.

The correct way of dealing with chronological
matters is to examine each source separately and
to draw a conclusion only after that by making a
cross-examination of the available evidence. Consequently Romila Thapar was at a loss which
possibility to choose. At p. 15 she prefers possibility I according to which Candragupta, Asoka's
father begins his reign in 324, B. C. ("486 B. C.
would be a more probable date for the Parinirvdna
than 483 B. C.") Shortly after that, on p. 16, she
again prefers 'possibility II ("321 B. C. seems a
much more probable date for the accession of Candragupta, from the point of view of his career").
The way in which to solve the problem is shown
by the Purana data according to which Candragupta is reigning from 317, B. C. till 293, B. C., for
24 years and his successor Bindusara from 293,
B. C., till 268, B.C., for 25 years (see P. H. L.
Eggermont, op. cit., p. 131 and p. 180) As
Asoka's accession, in that case, would take place in
the year 268, B. C., and as it is known from
Dipavamsa (VI, 1) that the very accession occurred in the year 218 after the Parinirvana, the
epoch of the Buddha era would have been 268 plus
218 is 486, B. C. In fact this date is handed down
by the so-called Dotted Record of Canton.
Moreover, an accession of Candragupta in the
year 317, B. c., is confirmed firstly by the datum
from Western Classical sources that the Macedonian occupation of the Panjab ended in the very
year 317, B. C., and secondly Indian sources maintain that Candragupta began his career by conquering the outlying provinces first whereas he
beseiged the capital only after that (see the story
of Parisistaparvan 290/296 and Thapar's book,
on p. 16) From these two data I conclude that
Candragupta must have seized power not earlier
than 317, B. C., so that both years mentioned by
Romila Thapar, sc. 324, B. C., and 321, B. c., must
be rejected.
Miss Thapar has not been inclined to accept my
view that the so-called interim 4 years' period between the accession and the coronation of Asoka is
virtually a fiction:
This four-year delay has been contested by Eggermont,
who uses as his main argument the idea that in the
Ceylonese tradition the year 218 after the death of the
Buddha had to be maintained at any cost as the coronation year of Asoka (p. 32).

I reject those contentions. My main argument

Reviews of Books
has no subjective motive at all and it is only by
scientific calculations that I proved that one of the
five authors of the DIpavamsa put the coronation
of Asoka in a year concurring with the year 264,
B. C. As Agoka virtually began his reign four
years earlier, in 268, B. c., an intercalary period of
four interim years was invented in order to account for those lost years. This proceeding which
at first sight seems strange, becomes clear if one
perceives that this fact is not the only one. The
Jaina tradition also acknowledges such a period;
with the Jains the Kali Age begins only 3 years
and 81/2 months after the death of the Vira
(Kalpasfttra, verse 147). The reason has probably
been the transition from a more primitive chronological system to another more refined one.
Both, the Ceylonese author as well as the Jain
author, must have struggled with the same problem, how to fit their church history in a new chronology. The only difference between their solutions is that each of them inserted the four
"sham" years in the time-scale at a different
point. This mistake of Romila Thapar has led to

An Old Marathi Reader. Edited with grammatical introduction, English translation,

notes and glossary. By S. G. TULPULE. Pp.
xvi + 264.
Poona: VENUS PRAKASHANA,
1960.

421

the consequence that she could not make use of

the Ceylonese tradition to the full extent; and this
has seriously affected her view of the conversion of
Asoka; I quote:
To refer to a precise point during his reign as the
moment of his conversion to Buddhism is to overstate
what actually took place (p. 33).

This statement is entirely wrong. The tradition

(Dip. VI, 18) as well as the inscriptions (Conversion Edicts) exactly mention the moment that
Asoka became an Upasaka. If tradition and inscriptions agree, one should take the event for
granted.
Notwithstanding the serious defects in the treatment of the chronology I should like to recommend
this book, notably on account of the interesting
view developed in chapter V and moreover,because
the many supplements and numerous details offer
a good starting-point to studies on the Mauryan
period.
P. II. L. EGGERMONT
ICHIEDAM

selections from varied sources (inscriptional as

well as literary) with English translations and very
informative notes. The glossary lists all forms occuring in the texts, including all inflected forms
(only missing items noted: hetu 16,2; jhuluimbuke 26, 7; hem&sdipandita6,3). The introducI have intentionally delayed writing this review tion (1-80) gives a brief summary of the historical
because I wanted to have a chance to use the phonology and morphology of OM, and some reReader in the classroom so as to judge its useful- marks on the external history (given in more
ness for students before passing judgment. The detail in the notes). This book is the first of its
value of this work is I think sufficiently indicated kind in the field of early NIA, and such is a very
by the fact that, without it, the course in Old impressive piece of work. I have no hesitation in
Marathi which was offered in 1961-2 at the Uni- suggesting it as a model for readers in other NIA
versity of Pennsylvania (the first such course in languages.
the U. S., as far as I know) could not have been
In a work of such ambitious scope as this there
offered. The author has successfully achieved his are inevitably some matters of detail which require
goal of producing a volume which will ". . . serve discussion and clarification. The following paraas an introduction to the language and literature graphs raise some of the more important points on
of the period known as Old Marfth!, i. e., the cen- which I feel that there is room for disagreement.
turies between 1000 and 1350." It is bound to be I wish to emphasize here that the following disgenuinely useful for students of Indo-Aryan his- cussion is not intended to detract from the pretory, and its appearance during the present period ceding remarks; it is in view of the general imof expanding activity in Indo-Aryan linguistics is portance and usefulness of this work that I feel it
very opportune. The contents include thirty-three worthwhile to make these comments.