Comments on: Who was the real “Ashoka the Great”?

By: Ranbirsingh

Ranbirsingh — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 12:33:07 +0000

Since last year or so I am getting to learn how Indian history has been deliberately distorted by western historians like max mueller.Actually I am a Congress supporter and am shocked to see how they continue with the same distorted history in our education system.I think I’ll have to change my support to other parties.

By: Gyanendra Kumar

Gyanendra Kumar — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 16:40:11 +0000

According to the cronicali order we have to belive that the piyadashi was the Ashoka the great. In Maski he himself claim that his name is Ashoka, other than maski Gujar he claims as Ashoka. The same title Devnam piadashi was adopted by the king of Tamrapani (Lanka)but we can identfies the ruler with the Great Ashok.

By: S Kalyanaraman

S Kalyanaraman — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:22:37 +0000

From Cooking the Buddhist Books: The Implications of the New Dating of the Buddha for the History of Early Indian Buddhism, an abstract:

Abstract

On the surface, new dating for the Buddha’s death doesn’t seem terribly earthshaking, either for Indian Buddhist history or for ancillary studies such as a consideration of Upāli and his lineage of *Vinayadharas*. Yet it is. If there is a new date for the Buddha’s demise, virtually everything we know about the earliest Indian Buddhism, and especially its sectarian movement, is once again called into question.

Dates for the first, second,and third canonical councils—once thought to be certain—must now be reexamined. Kings who presided at these events must be reconsidered. Most
importantly, the role of the great Indian King Aśoka, from whose reign much of the previous dating begins, needs to be placed under the scrutiny of the historical microscope again.

Charles S. Prebish
Program in Religious Studies
Utah State University
charles.prebish AT usu.edu *Journal of Buddhist Ethics*, Volume 15, 2008