THE TRAMP OF CENTURIES 15
reign (300 B. C.) Buddhism became the prevailing reli-
gion in Gandhara (Peshawar District) and Pakhli
(Hazara District). The Maurya Empire culminated in the
Apostle Empire of Asoka, perhaps the greatest monarch
in the world that ever lived. He made Buddhism the
State religion and abolished war, touched by the miseries
of a victorious war against Kalinga in which 100,000 were
slain on the battlefield. Thereafter, instead of sending
emissaries of war, he sent forth only emissaries of peace
to deliver sermons on Peace and the Supreme Law to the
nations of the world.* Under him was developed an
elaborate system of Imperial administration based on
* This is how the event is described in the famous Xlllth
(Kalinga) Edict:
" The Kalingas were conquered by His Sacred and Gracious-
Majesty the King when he had been consecrated eight years.
150,000 persons were thence carried away captive, 100,000 were
there slain and many times that number perished.
" Directly after the annexation of the Kalingas began His-
Sacred Majesty's zealous protection of the Law of Piety, his-
love of that Law, and his giving instruction in that Law
(dharma). Thus arose His Sacred Majesty's remorse for having;
conquered the Kalingas, because the conquest of a country pre-
viously unconquered involves the slaughter, death and carrying,
away captive of the people. That is a matter of profound sorrow
and regret to His Sacred Majesty.
" Thus of all the people who were there slain, done to death.
or carried away captive in the Kalingas, if the 100th or the
1000th part were to suffer the same fate, it would now be matter
of regret to His Sacred Majesty. Moreover, should any one do
him wrong, that too must be borne with by His Sacred Majasty
if it can possibly be borne with.
"And this is the chiefest conquest in the opinion of His
Sacred Majesty — the Conquest by the Law of Piety — and this-
again, has been Won by His Sacred Majesty both in his own
dominions and in all the neighbouring realms as far as 600'
leagues............
" And for this purpose has this pious edict been written in
order that my sons and grandsons, who may be, should not re-
gard it as their duty to conquer a new country. If perchance,
they become engaged in a conquest by arms, they should take-
pleasure in patience and gentleness and regard as (the only-
true) conquest, the conquest won by piety. That avails for both:
this world and the next."