Asian Art and Architecture: Art & Design 382/582

Ashoka’s reign 268 - 231 BCE

Maurya period map of pillar and inscription locations

Pillar forms Persepolis Achaemenid 538 - 330 BCE

Bull, saddle capital Persepolis Achaemenid 538 - 330 BCE

110 Female figure Patna Maurya 323 - 185 BCE

This is precisely the situation with the Brahmanical artists of today’s Jain art. It takes three roles to produce Indian ritual art, the artist (sthapati) , the patron (yajamana) and the patron’s spiritual guide (acharya). What is important to remember is that we are talking about Indian artists and not Buddhist artists.

Lee’s date for the Buddha is 563 to 483 (R&J’s was 624-544). Lee’s definition of Buddhism is only a few paragraphs long, but it gets to the essentials for his treatment of the art. His view varies in important ways from R&J’s in that he is even more skeptical of the Buddhist’s claims about the Buddha’s historical role than they are. He for instance doesn’t credit the Buddha with the creation of the Sangha, which is a highly unusual. His major points are worth noting. He see the Buddha is essentially a reformer of the Brahmanical thought of his time though not a revolutionary. Most would say a revolutionary, since Buddhism rejects the primacy of the Vedas, the transcendence of the gods, and the caste system. (What is significant here is that Buddhism is an Indian system, if the most unorthodox one.) The Buddhas message is essentially that the world is illusory and that to escape the continual pain of living in it, and being endlessly reborn to live it again one must turn to a moral life, suppress all attachments through yogic meditation. This is all epitomized in the first sermon’s call to the middle way, the 4 noble (arya) truths and the noble 8 fold path.

Lee mentions the 8 great events, but his list is quite idiosyncratic and not at all the usual Indian Buddhist selection. The usual Indian selection is:

(1) the birth, (2) the enlightenment, (3) the first sermon, (4) the miracle of Sankasya (5) the miracle of Shravasti, (6) the miracle of Vaishali, (7) the miracle of Rajagriha, and (8) the Paranirvana. Those in bold are the even more important set of the 4 great events.

1 birth at Lumbini symbolized by a lotus,

2 Enlightenment at Bodh Gaya symbolized by the Bodhi tree

3 first sermon at Sarnath symbolized by the Dharmacakra

4 visit to the Triastrimsa at Sankasya symbolized by a stairway up

5 conversion of the 6 heretics at Sravasti symbolized by multiple Buddhas

6 monkey’s gift at Vaishali symbolized by the bowl of honey

7 taming of the Elephant at Rajgir symbolized by the bowing elephant

8 Paranirvana at Kusinagra symbolized by a stupa

Shravakayana The Buddhism we have been discussing to this point and for a while yet is the Buddhism of the sravaka (deciples), which seems to be close to the original faith. The clearest view we have of it today is what we get from the one of its 17 known sects to have survived, the Theravada sect of Sri Lanka, Burma and Thailand today. This is most commonly known in the West as Hinayana Buddhism (the Buddhism of the Lesser Path), but since that is the pejorative title given it by the competing Mahayana (Great path) schools, we will try to avoid it and go with Theravada or shravakayana, which would apply to all the 17 earlier sects.

The Maurya Period is a general designation for art of South Asia during the span of the Maurya Empire, which lasted from 322 to 185 BCE. Though they did not rule the entire South Asian subcontinent, at their peak under Ashoka the Maurya are conventionally thought to have ruled the largest extent of India under one government at any period. Today it is understood that their actual effectual rule beyond the Ganga plain of North India was only a ritual overlordship involving little more than symbolic affiliation. But this affiliation was undoubtedly significant as lithic inscriptions are scattered well into South India and the relation to the Mauryas was long remembered and revered.

The dynasty began with Chandragupta Maurya, a contemporary of Alexander of Macedon, who allied with Alexander during his short lived and fatal invasion of the Indus region between 327 to 324 BCE. The most important of the Maurya sovereigns was the third, Ashoka, who ruled c 268 to 231 BCE. Ashoka would be of greatest importance to India without his connection to Buddhism, but the fact that he declared himself to have had a conversion to the Buddhist religion early in his reign is also of great importance. Buddhists claim him as one of the greatest of all Buddhist rulers. (Jains claim Chandragupta as a major convert and early Jain leader.)

Maurya art is significant for being the first significant production in permanent materials since the Indus Valley times. In between we have a few metal and clay images scattered widely around the subcontinent. Iron-use comes India around the 11th to 10th century with the horse as part of the cultural complex that produced the Rig Veda, and our earliest definite reference to the Arya. The painted gray ware of that complex seems to distinguish these Indo-European speakers from the red ware people who preceded them and knew nothing of horses or iron.

The main importance of Maurya art is its jump into permanent materials. We see no development of the Maurya style. There is no primitive, early stage or more mature later stage. The style we find is so distinctive and well-developed in all its remains, that there can be no doubt that it represents a translation into stone of an already mature formation. Once again, as we have seen with the Indus Valley’s art, there is an interesting correlation with the art of the Iranian plateau to the north, its nearest cultural equal and trading partner. The art of the Maurya period shares a number of features with the Achaemenid art of Iran, who ruled as far south as the province of Kandahar in modern Afghanistan. And it has been noted that the rise of stone art in India follows closely upon the destruction of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander. Though the Orientalists went too far in attributing the style of Maurya art to Iran, we may not be wrong in supposing that the Maurya took their impulse to commit their hitherto wood and plaster art to stone from the Achaemenid craft workers seeking work at the Maurya court following the destruction of their former patrons.

What is clear is that whatever suggested the initiation of Indian sculpture in stone in the Maurya period, and however much that art shares with the art of the Achaemenid empire, the art of India was so distinct that not a piece of the work in either place could be mistaken for that done in the other. They shared elements, but they also had a total distinct means of applying even those elements they shared.

In association with his conversion to Buddhism Ashoka had pillars raised and inscriptions put on pillars at important locations in his central Ganga valley realm. The columns are all of more or less identical form and material. Most seem to be quarried from the same coffee colored sandstone of the Chunar quarry, across the river from Varanasi. Each is around 50 feet tall reaching straight out of the ground and topped by an animal capital. They are pegged together by copper dowels.

The correct name for the genre at the time seems to have been the Indra Stambha. But the ones that have come down to us in stone all seem to be Buddhist and so better called Buddhist stambhas (pillars). It now seems clear that some of these pillars must have pre-dated Ashoka and even the Maurya.

The 8’9" Rampurva Bull capital comes from one of a pair of pillars found at the same site on the Gandak river, about half way from Pataliputra, the Maurya capital and Lumbini the Buddha’s birth place. It is carved in the light-coffee-colored sandstone of Chunar and likely carried from there. Its design is divided into the lotus bell base a narrow abacus of floral forms and the great bull zebu above. It was once finished in a fine polish, but years of weathering and possibly the time lying in bog where it eventually fell has worn off most.

The lotus bell is a highly refined shape we find in a good number of other capitals and destined to become a stable of later Indian design. It is a full round shape bulging gently but firmly above to produce a double-curving silhouette. Its outer surface is finished in a set of ridges that alternate abstractly between angled ribs surrounded by rounded ones. Above the bell is a narrow necking finished in the form of a twisted rope. Above this is a wide abacus carrying a repeat pattern of three spread out flower and rosette forms.

It is John Irwin’s contention that such animal capitals were originally made in wood or copper and then lashed with ropes to the tops of wooden pillars. If that is so this design may preserve in its alternating ribs the form of the ropes circling the base of the animal on top and hooking around pegs on the pole below.

Atop the design we find the great bull. It has lost its horns and its neck folds, but otherwise stands in relatively fine shape after two-and-a-quarter millennia. The bull stand majestically erect. All four legs are planted firmly on the platform. The stone between its legs has been left intact. Its genitals marked strongly in relief. If it is an idealized image in its symmetrical precision, it is also a relatively naturalistic one with its careful attention to realistic proportions and anatomy. All in all the swelling of the belly and its contrast against the ridge of the haunch behind and the soft swelling of the shoulders and hump in front are quite effective.

So what does Lee mean when he goes on to compare it with Hittite and Persian bulls? Why compare them to something from so far away in time and space? One of the Orientalist principles is to trace Indian designs to other supposed sources. The suggestion being that Indians could not create on their own. Since the Hittites were a thousand years earlier we can do best to see how this image compares with the Persian bulls, of the style that the Mauryas do actually share.

The Achaemenid Persians used animals in saddle linked pairs as architectural motifs. These pillars always had molded bases and usually fluted sides. They commonly also had polish. When they had bull capitals here is what the bull looked like.

These bulls are highly stylized when compared to the Indian model. The depiction is generally less organic as a whole. The nostrils and the markings around the eyes and indeed every individual detail is reduced to a half round tubular form. The result is highly elegant and forceful in effect. It is also quite distinct from the organic Indian rendition of the animal. Achaemenid art has none of India’s organic realism or relaxed form. It never produces an animal on a pillar. It only has these geometric addorsed saddle capitals from actual architecture. Though noting the forms on the pillar and even the bulls depiction tells us that these two cultures shared some of their artistic models, as they do their Indo-European language.

The Lion Capital from Sarnath is unquestionably a creation of Ashoka’s reign. It topped a pillar with an inscription saying that it was raised upon Ashoka’s order to carry a message from the emperor to the Buddhist Sangha. It originally stood on the site of one of Buddhism’s four great events, in the Deer Park at Sarnath, where a monastery marked the location of the Buddha’s First Sermon.

The seven foot capital can be divided into two parts: its lotus bell base and the great quadrant of lions above. The lotus bell is itself a more or less exact duplicate of the Rampurva capital, and so as good an demonstration as any of the style’s consistency. As is the Chunar sandstone from which it was chiseled. The circular abacus slab above the bell is quite different. Instead of the water lily patterns found there, here we find a repetition of four wheels, dividing into four quarters with a different animal in each quarter: A horse an elephant, a lion and a bull. From other Buddhist usages over the centuries we can suppose these animals to mark the for directions. The wheels may be refer to the four directions, whose total was conventionally referred to as marking the "full wheel, " or to the dharma cakra the Buddhist wheel of the law, that Sakyamuni was said to have put into motion by his preaching of the first sermon at this place.

Above is the capital’s major symbolism, a quadrant of addorsed lions. In contrast to the relative naturalism of the four abacus animals below and the Rampurva Bull, these lions are fairly stylized. Their legs and claws may be naturalistic in details, but the faces and tufted mains mark these lions as more heraldic symbols than life like beast. This is most clear when we compare these lions with the one below. Its elegantly repeated formula for hair and its nearly geometric whiskers and stiff symmetry are quite striking. As is the high polish of its finish.

And it is these features which it shares with Achaemenian royal art. The closeness among the two being so close, we cannot doubt their sharing and familiarity. Their distinction being as clear we cannot doubt their autonomy. There is nothing among the saddle back animal capitals of Iran like the four lion combination found here. Or, like the giant 6-7 feet wheel that it originally carried above.

This is undoubtedly a work of art for the Buddhist community. It was erected to carry a message from the emperor, who in it calls himself a bhikshu (monk), addressing the Buddhist Sangha with a condemnation against schismatic splitting into competing sects. On the other hand it is not clear whether the symbolism we see here is Buddhist or royal. The lions could stand for the Buddha, who was regularly spoken of as Shakya simha, the lion of the Shakya clan. Or they could be royal insignia. The wheels could be references to the Buddhist Wheel of the Law, but they could be references to the emperor’s role as cakravartin, the ruler of the full wheel, the title most equivalent to emperor in ancient India.

And you see Lee’s contention that the animals "may" symbolize Brahmanical deities: the horse for Surya the sun, the bull for Siva, the lion for Durga, and the elephant for Indra. He supposes that their presence may thus stand for their subordination to the Buddha. What is clear is that we are seeing Indian imagery, but its exact Buddhist meaning is not clear.

The Parkham Yaksha, named for the site near the ancient holy city and major political capital of Mathura, is presented by Lee particularly as not of Near Eastern in origin. This is an indication of how interested Lee and the Orientalist tradition were in tying as much as they could of early Indian art to regions outside of India. Lee is also excited by the picture he has showing the image as it was first photographed, outside of the museum. Having seen comparable images worshipped nearby I am a little less excited. We need to remember that such images were not made like modern sculpture for museum exhibition, but we also need to recognize that in most cases we have lost their original sites and situations. In this case our photo shows the Yaksha standing in the open air next to fragment of much later sculpture. It is more likely that this image originally was covered in some way as nearly all worshipped images always are.

Here we have a massive figure. Lee’s explanation is that it is a style developed initially in wood, which is undoubtedly the case. The more or less mature form found in Maurya art from its beginning can be explained no other way than that it was a style already long in development that was at this time translated into stone, that is a mature style committed only at a late date to stone following many years of production in wood, plaster, clay and other ephemeral materials.

Lee looks at the bent left knee and longs for a previous image with stiff knees, to reproduce the Greek series of gradually naturalizing Kouros images of the 7th through 5th centuries. And indeed such a progression may have preceded this image, but if it was so it was a progression in ephemeral materials. Certainly there was some. The more important point is that sculptor here wanted to give the image some life like suggestion of movement.

The figure is a massive 8’8" colossus with the thick proportions of a superhuman strongman. His massive belly projects out of the trunk of his body like the boiler of a steam locomotive. Thickly ribbed plaiting and embroidered sashes hang around his neck and across his chest. A great knotted sash supports his fine and almost diaphanous dhoti, which is tied as common today in north India, rich folds gathered in front. He wears great bulbous earrings.

What are Yaksha? They are essentially tutelary deities, the earth or water spirits that act as the guardians of a particular place. Lee’s Tibetan story about a guardian to a town being a sculpt Yaksha placed into a guardhouse at the town gate fits this well. In the Village of Noh, fifteen or so miles southwest of Parkham, there is a Yaksha of more or less the same proportions and form, though more abraded. It stands under a modern shelter, still in worship as the "Jak" of that place today.

The Yakshi found at Besnagar is a female version of the same principle. A local tutelary deity. Her formal conception is more or less the same as well. A compact body of massive proportions, 6’7" in height, she too wears a standard dhoti, depicted as if made of thin, clinging cloth. And she too is represented as ornamented by plaits and sashes of embroidered bands at the waist and in her hair. She also has anklets, a number of necklaces, and a girdle knotted in front that composed of multiple strands of coins, tokens, or shells behind. Like the Parkham Yaksha this image has lost its semi-detached arms and suffered further abrasions from weathering and worship.

I have dropped this off our list, because recent scholarship has re-considered it to be an Early Andhra work of two centuries later.

The terra cotta figurine from Patna is slightly less than a foot in height. We have no reason to think it was anything other than a household decoration. The figure is dressed in a flounced skirt and thick ornaments at her neck, on her arms and lavishly sprouting from her hair. Such ornamentation is commonly depicted and likely reflective of the ideal ornamentation of the times. She is shown as idealized mature woman with full hips and breasts accentuated by a narrow waist.

As Lee points out this is a figure marked strikingly by its terra cotta manufacture. She looks pieced together from distinct rolls of clay. The necklace and apron are visibly the result of a process of pressing one piece of clay onto another. Her face is revealed, by its many replications on other pieces, as the work of a mold.

Lee’s 3 styles of the Maurya period are his own hypothetical construction:

I don’t see any real basis for it. The fact is there are more than these three sorts of art existing at the time in different locations, and he’s trying too hard to put everything that he is interested in illustrating into too convenient a set of cubby-holes.

The Lomas Rishi cave, illustrated in your syllabus, is one of the few bits of architecture left to us from the Maurya period. It is a cult-shrine excavation created for the Ajivaka sect by in Ashoka’s time and probably by order of Ashoka himself. The nearly-duplicate excavation nearby bears an inscription claiming it’s patronage for the emperor. What we see is an arched architectural facade carved in relief on a granite wall that was pierced and hollowed out to create an architectural interior. It is a sculptural depiction of a structure in wood, brick, plaster, and thatch, so carefully detailed that we can reconstruct the building on which it appears to be based.

The facade depicts a pair of slightly canted pillars supporting an arched roof. The roof is composed of three layers and carries a finial at its peak. The pillars are connected above by three arched ribs. Between these are depicted an openwork lattice and a frieze of elephants marching out of the mouths of crocodilian makara. The depiction of beam ends and connecting pieces seems to display a precise copy of wood joinery and carpentry. A slightly canted entrance way leads an interior that represents a barrel vaulted hall connecting to a circular, vaulted inner chamber. Though this is somewhat unfinished in the Lomas Rishi cave, the Sudhama cave a hundred or so feet away, excavated in the same boulder, shows the same plan in a finished form, though in this case the facade is left undecorated.

There are a couple of points of particular interest for us here. The first is the carving of an architectural form into the "living" rock of a hill side. Like the technique of carving in stone in general this may be a Maurya adaptation of a form they found in Achaemenid Persia. The actual forms here, on the other hand are peculiarly Indian and outside of the technique, there is nothing here one can trace to any non-Indian source. The Ajivaka sect, which never had a popular following, was one of those heterodox Upanisadic ascetic movements of the Buddha’s time, that seems to have died out soon after. The form of the structure is pertinent. The structure built from sawn and joined carpentry of careful design records the elite architecture of the period, and reveals its great interiors to use vaulted forms.

Dharma Vinaya (Doctrine and Discipline) was the Buddhist’s own name for their religion.

The First Council Sangiti (recitation) is what they were called. The first one took place at Rajagriha in the monsoon following the paranirvana. Mahakasyapa lead the questioning of Upali on Vinaya and Ananda on Dharma. The most important outcome, aside from the general agreement on what was established by the Buddha in its lifetime, was the statement by some, who departed saying they remembered things differently. That is, schism was there from the beginning.

Remembered? In the beginning all texts were oral and memorized in collections (pitika). Initially there were two, the Vinayapitika (rules of monastic discipline) and the Sutrapitika (doctrine). Some groups soon added a third, the Abhidharmapitika, a collection of texts that systematized and interpreted the Sutrapitika. The Sutras were originally much alike for all, but the Vinaya, and even more the Abhidharma, differed among different groups.

The language spoken by Shakyamuni, was a precursor of the Magadhi of the Ashokan inscriptions. Pali, the language of the Theravada texts, is closer to it than any other surviving language. Brought to Lanka with Buddhism, it records the closest form we have to what was originally spoken by the historical Buddha.

The carrying of Pali to Lanka, and its ideological as well as linguistic replacement of the languages preceded it, give us a second example of ideological diffusion—in contrast to mass invasion—as an extremely significant historical development. In this case the result was the conversion of the southern-most region in South Asia to an Indo-European language, closely related to those of North India.

This further highlights the importance of cultural regionalism in South Asia. As an island, Lanka has more distinct borders than found around other regions, such as the Indus valley in the northwest, or the Kaveri delta or Kosala, or the more ambiguous still division between the macro regions of north and south. But these division of culture did exist, and they are clearly visible in both vernacular language and the style in the visual arts.

Vinaya disagreements were prominent from the First Council on. The Theravada is the only complete one surviving. All presuppose large groups, and reached their final forms only after many centuries. Included are Patimokkha codes to be repeated on uposatha observances, the last day of the bright and the dark halves of the month. Of particular interest to material historians has been included description of Sangharama (monastery) structures made of wattle & daub only, and none of stone or brick, nor even of the fine, wood-joinery (sandhi ) carpentry.

Abhidharma (higher Dharma) earliest is Theravada, now dated to the 3rd Council, c 250 BCE. Dharmaguptaka’s and Sarvastivadin’s survive in Chinese.

The Buddha’s teaching was essentially therapeutic, not philosophical. The Sutra take the form of discourses or dialogues in the voice of Sakyamuni. There Shakyamuni is said to speak on two levels: conventional for those not capable of sophisticated interpretation and ultimate, in absolute realities. One thing this allowed for was room for differences of interpretation within the Buddhist fold. That is, among different sects. Differing groups often shared the same monasteries. The practical meaning of schism was whether or not they could conduct monastery business together. When this was no longer possible, the normal course was for one group to leave.

A Second Great Council took place a century later (c. 544) at Vaishali. Sthaviras, forest-dwelling (elders), from the west, claimed the city-dwelling monks of Vaishali were changing the Vinaya, allowing storage of salt and the use of gold and silver. Altogether they put forward nine points. The Vaishali monks refused their rebuke and held their own subsequent council, where they decided to form a separate school calling themselves Mahasanghika (the Great Assembly). This was a distinctly prominent schism. Though the issues of Vinaya were recorded at the time, it is for their departures on doctrine that the Mahasanghikas are most noted.

The Mahasanghika in general refused to accept the established Sutras or Vinaya as a final authority. Some of them saw Arhats’ memories as fallible. The Katukkutika took logic as the only true guide to the Buddha’s intended meaning, while maintaining that study and meditation were unnecessary. They felt meditation and study less necessary and only Abhidharma (critical exegesis) of practical use. They saw other means of transmission outside the canon. And they let Bhikkhus of below the level of Arhat take part in discussion. It was from the Mahasanghikas that Mahayana eventually grew. Their major centers in historical times were Pataliputra, on the Ganga, and the Krishna river valley region in the south. This last was the location of the great sangharama sites of Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda. Chinese pilgrims reported them to be active and distinguishable there, as late as the seventh to eighth century. Their early liberality of interpretation was the beginning of the trend that blossomed in Mahayana in the second century of the common era.

The Sthaviravadins also split over philosophical issues. Pudgalavadins (Personalists) said the nirvana couldn’t be reduced to the skandhas. That is, something had to be transferred from one life to the next. They also claimed that Stream-winners (beginning Bhikkhus) could not take their gain to their next lives and nothing could be "released". Thus, they believed that some personality did migrate life to life. As a school of Buddhist thought and practice they lasted till 13th century, and flourished particularly under the Indian monarch, Harsha (606-647). It was now clear that that schism, the division of the Sangha into significantly contrasting traditions was a fact.

A Third Great Council took place around 250 BCE at Pataliputra, under the patronage of the great king Ashoka. The issue here was brought up by the Vibhajyavadins (Distinctionists) who claimed that things only existed for an instant, while the Sarvastivadins (All-is-ists) claimed things do exist in a more extended past, present, and future. They were rebuked. The Sarvastivadins were centered mainly in Mathura, Kashmir, and the Indus region (then referred to as Gandhara). From this location, astride the trade routes to western and central Asia, they were the Buddhists in closest contact with east as well as central Asians. It was they who developed the doctrine of Paramita (perfections). A Bodhisattva fulfills six Paramita: generosity virtue, patience, vigor, dhyana, and discernment. They used jataka tales to demonstrate this. They were a major source for Mahayana, though the Sarvastivadins, unlike the Mahayanists, painted the Paramitas as superhuman and so unachievable by most. The issue of schism on the basis of doctrine as well as Vinaya was now clearly recognized.

Other sects developed. Sautrantikas (Sutras only, no Abhidharma), claimed karma by intentional deeds leaving seeds that carry effects latent in the personality stream until later fruition, an idea picked up later by Yogacarins. Dharmaguptakas were in Gandhara and Central Asia. Sthaviravdins were powerful in the Ganga valley till the thirteenth century.

Theravadins (also calling themselves Vibhajyavadins) settled in Narmada valley. It was they who brought Buddhism, in their west Indian dialect, Pali, to Lanka. Theravadins flourished in Lanka from c 240 BCE on. The style of the visual imagery of the Theravadin Buddhists of Lanka was, by contrast, mainly that of the Krishna Valley of the Dravida speaking, southeastern coast, however.

Before texts were written down a monk belonged to the school whose texts he memorized. In the first to second century of the common era, writing came in. which yielded a new culture. This was in the second, half-millennium of the Buddha’s era (c 50 BCE- 450 CE). Monks or nuns could mix ideas more easily then. Though in reality the vast majority of the ordained focused on meditation and discipline, not philosophical issues.

Chandragupta, the inaugurator of the Maurya dynasty, was a pragmatic ruler (321- 297 BCE) conquering most of north India’s Ganga and Indus regions, as far west as Afghanistan. In later times the Jains claimed that at the end of his reign he converted to Jainism and led a great division of Jains to Karnataka in the far south. Bindusara, the second Maurya emperor (297-272 BCE) extended the empire’s territorial claim south to the Deccan. He was also notable as a patron of the Ajivakas. Ashoka, was the fourth and unquestionably the greatest of the Maurya emperors, by all measures. He came to the throne in 268 BCE and claimed to became a Buddhist, c 259 BCE. Ashoka of the Buddhist tradition was called Priadarsi, Beloved of the Gods. in Ajivaka inscriptions and in his own inscriptions.

It was after his Orissan campaign of c 257 or 256 BCE, that the Ashoka’s Buddhism began to take effect. Inscriptions near the site refer to his revulsion at the great carnage and his resolve to avoid violence and follow dharma, from then on. Though as emperor Ashoka supported all religions, the Buddhists were the only ones he addressed specifically. As the first Indian monarch to use the written word, Ashoka had edicts explaining his purposes carved into boulders and free- standing pillars across his realm. Though some of these pillars were already standing, some were raised specifically for the purpose of publicizing his messages. Many, if not all of these, were at Buddhist sites, and it was particularly Buddhist values he claimed to make the basis of his government. He is also known to have dedicated an Ajivaka cave excavations, and in secular inscriptions suggests that converts go on contributing to their choice of sects. His edicts focus on truthfulness, non-violence, respect for elders and teachers.

Ashoka’s edicts are notable for his rather Buddhist use of the term "Dharma," to refer to moral values and the qualities of the heart underlying moral action. Previous Brahmanical use refers only to moral rules and ritual behavior enjoined by the Veda. From these edicts we also learn that he abandoned hunting, warfare, and began making pilgrimage to important sites of the Buddha’s life. In 253 BCE he enlarged stupa of Konamakamurti, a previous Buddha. His first queen was from Vidisa, and he sponsored a stupa at the nearby Chaityagiri Sangharama, where he also had raised a pillar, inscribed with a message to the Sangha, warning against divisive activities that could lead to schism. It was claimed that in one night he once had 84,000 stupas raised.

In 254 BCE Ashoka had fourteen rock edicts referring to his secular dharma inscribed. The bilingual, Kandahar inscription, in Greek and Aramaic, for instance, advocates conquest by dharma rather than violence. These inscriptions have been called the most social welfare oriented regal statements of the ancient world.

In 241 BCE he had carved seven pillar edicts advocating specifically Buddhist dharma, obedience to teachers and elders, non-killing, generosity, moderation, devotion, compassion, forgiveness, etc. He was particularly interested in advocating against sects splitting, and legitimated the forcible disrobing of those who refused to avoid actions leading in that direction.

Ashoka’s son, Mahinda, and daughter, Sanghamitta, are said by the Theravada texts to have been among those who brought Buddhism to Lanka.

Religious life in the early centuries Depicted in Vinaya and Sutras.

Life of the Bhikshu (Bhikkhu) and the Pratimoksa (Pattimokkha) rules repeated at each half-monthly public meeting reveal the interests of the discipline by the sanctions undergone for infractions. The full list in the Theravada Vinaya numbers 227 precepts for Bhikkhu and 311 for women. These are cataloged by their severity.

From 8-19 years of age one may be a novice only. From 20 one may be fully ordained. Nuns also require a two year postulantship before becoming novices. Women unquestionably face a higher burden and lower expectations than men in early Buddhism.

A Novice takes 10 precepts: to abstain from taking life, stealing, sexual intercourse, lying, consuming liquor, eating after noon, watching singing, dancing or shows, adorning self with garlands, or perfume, using a high seat or bed, and receiving gold or silver.

Full ordination was done publicly. There one was advised to train the self for heightened virtue, concentration, and discernment, to end cravings and reach nirvana. One was then apprenticed to another. Life was to be eremitic (wandering alone) in dry season, cenobitic (communal and residential) in the rainy season (vassa, varsa). Only three garments were allowed (under, upper, and outer), plus a belt, and sandals. The only other personal possessions allowed were a bowl (for begging and eating), razor, tweezers, nail cutter, comb (for removing lice), a gauze filter (for water), needle, bag of medicine, umbrella. At the beginning of the dry season the laity offered Bhikkhus new robes, and necessities.

Despite all these efforts to avoid material possessions by maintaining the Sangha as a brotherhood of wandering renouncers, possession of permanent dwellings came early, as there were rules for year-round residence from the beginning. There was, in fact, no vow of poverty. Land, servants and vehicles were not acceptable possessions for individuals, but a Sangha could accept them.

Thus we may explain beggars living in palaces. Monks could serve traders and the Sangha recompensed, as when traders store things in monastery or a monk travels with traders to be a missionary and traders gain someone to patronize for merit. The division between forest and city monks was a most important issue of contention. The Buddha’s own room was called the perfumed chamber, because of the incense burned there to honor him.

Monks had two roles, matching the Buddhas two major impulses toward bodhi and karuna. First and foremost they were meditators seeking their personal enlightenment. Second, and also of importance, but of somewhat less centrality than the first, they were teachers of other monks and the laity.

Bhikuni Sangha instituted with reluctance. Women could become Arhats. But it was clear that they were a class below the Bhikkhu. Among the precepts, in their longer list, were eight indicating their subordination to Bhikkhus. All Bhikkhus were senior to Bhikkhuni, the nuns could never abuse or reprove a monk etc. Shakyamuni was quoted as saying that it was because of the existence of nuns that only half instead of a full millennium of True Dharma could endure.

Still, they had an equal likelihood of achieving nirvana. And, it is claimed by some, that early Buddhism offered women better status than any other culture in the world or its religions. (This would include the world of urban civilizations, not the previous or contemporaneous world of small scale, pre-literate, "tribal" societies, which were apparently—as their later day survivals—far more egalitarian. And, indeed, little of Theri Sangha was noted after the Buddha’s time. Though nuns made major contributions at Sanchi and some other great sangharama sites. They lasted till the end in India, but only to 1000 in Lanka.

Upasaka, Upasika laity, were taught an appropriate (and more limited) level of Dharma. Advised to be diligent in profession and care for possessions, and to associate with good people, to prepare for the next life. They should develop 1) concentration on the law of karma, 2) virtue, 3) discernment, and 4) generosity in order to acquire punya (karmic merit) for a good life, unbewildered death, and better rebirth (in a heaven!).

5 precepts abstain from 1) killing living beings (though not plants), 2) taking what is not given, 3) sexual misconduct (by a forbidden passage or with other than wife or courtesan), 4) lying speech, 5) liquor.

8 precepts further could be taken almost becoming a novice. Either always or on posadha days (full and new moon days). Then one might dress in white.

Some meditation and Sutras were taught to laity, but not all. Laity could attain the benefits of the third stage of arhatship (become non-returners, though only if they joined the Sangha within a week. Monks preached at lay rituals for births, weddings and funerals. Their attendance brought merit to those attending. Festivals on Buddha’s birth, awakening, parinirvana day (all the same Vaisaka purnima).

Popular Buddhism absorbed local religious forms, symbols and cults. For instance, the cult of trees. The peepul tree (Skt. asvattha, Lat. ficus religiosa), under which the Buddha reached enlightenment, became the symbol of the enlightenment and was reverenced in honor of that event. This tree, still a popular object of devotion in India today, was one reverenced back at least as far as the Indus Civilization. The six Buddhas, of previous eons, recognized by the early Buddhists were each assigned a different species of tree to symbolize their enlightenments. The nirvana was symbolized by the two sal trees, between which it occurred, for example at Ajanta. Missionaries brought clippings from the Bodhi tree at Bodhgaya to their establishments at Sravasti and many other places, even as far away as Anuradhapura in Lanka.

The most prominent early monuments were stupas, burial mounds constructed over the 1) relics of a Buddha (any, though Gautama’s had the most prestige), 2) objects associated with a Buddha, 3) places associated with a Buddha, or 4) a full or fragmentary piece of scripture, i.e., the Dharma.

The symbolism of the stupa is complex and multi-layered. Primarily it is funerary, indicating the presence and absence of the Buddha in the relics and indication of the nirvana in the passing away. But along with that it is also a representation of the cosmos: the world mountain of shared Indian cosmology, in association with which its various circular and square layouts and their cardinal orientation, represent the shapes of the cosmos seen in the Vedic altars and possibly earlier.

In the process of the circumambulation which was the ritual of their use, stupas offered the laity an opportunity for accumulating merit. They offered a focus for meditation or devotion. And in a secular vein they offered the opportunity for gaining secular prestige by show of one’s piety. (It was not for some time that Buddhists allowed themselves the figurative images of Buddha, that replaced the stupa to an important extent.)

Worshipping can be seen depicted in the holding hands in anjali mudra, walking in circumambulation (pradakshina), singing, bringing of gifts, hanging of garlands, and visiting.

Symbols seen in aniconic worship:

lotus birth

peepul tree enlightenment

wheel preaching the Dharma

stupa Paranirvana

turban shrine renunciation

footprints, throne, fiery pillar the Buddha’s presence

And then, by sometime in the first century, more or less following the half-millennium of the Dharma’s perfection, images of the Buddha itself. None known is believed to predate the first century of the common era.

One of the Buddha’s favorite analogies for this life is of a burning house we need to escape.

Jaina texts from the time of the earliest Sutrapitika complain that the Buddhists would not commit on what the self was, or if it existed, while the Brahmanical texts continued to maintain that the Buddhists defended the no-self doctrine. The Buddha was known to have rejected both the Brahmanical ideal of the permanent self and the Anhilationist claim that there was no self at all.