Part 47

The Dhauli Edict of King Asoka contains the following:

Much longing after the things [of this life] is a disobedience, I again declare; not less so is the laborious ambition of dominion by a prince who would be a propitiator of Heaven. Confess and believe in God, who is the worthy object of obedience.

From the Tenth Rock Edict:

Earthly glory brings little profit, but, on the contrary, produces a loss of virtue. To toil for heaven is difficult to peasant and to prince, unless by a supreme effort he gives up all.

This is from the Fourteenth Edict:

Piyadasi, the friend of the Devas, values alone the harvest of the next world. For this alone has this inscription been chiselled, that our sons and our grandsons should make no new conquests. Let them not think that conquests by the sword merit the name of conquests. Let them see their ruin, confusion, and violence. True conquests alone are the conquests of Dharma.

Rock Edict No. 1 has:

Formerly in the great refectory and temple of King Piyadasi, the friend of the Devas, many hundred thousand animals were daily sacrificed for the sake of food meat... but now the joyful chorus resounds again and again that henceforward not a single animal shall be put to death.

The Second Edict has:

In committing the least possible harm, in doing abundance of good, in the practice of pity, love, truth, and likewise purity of life, religion consists.

The Ninth Edict has:

Not superstitious rites, but kindness to slaves and servants, reverence towards venerable persons, self-control with respect to living creatures... these and similar virtuous actions are the rites which ought indeed to be performed.

The Eighth Edict has:

The acts and the practice of religion, to wit, sympathy, charity, truthfulness, purity, gentleness, kindness.

The Sixth Edict has:

I consider the welfare of all people as something for which I must work.

The Dhauli Edict has:

If a man is subject to slavery and ill-treatment, from this moment he shall be delivered by the king from this and other captivity. Many men in this country suffer in captivity, therefore the stupa containing the commands of the king has been a great want.

Is it reasonable to suppose that a people possessing so much wisdom, mercy, and purity two centuries before Christ was born could need to borrow from the Christian ethics?

Mr. Lillie says of King Asoka:

He antedates Wilberforce in the matter of slavery. He antedates Howard in his humanity towards prisoners. He antedates Tolstoy in his desire to turn the sword into a pruning-hook. He antedates Rousseau, St. Martin, Fichte in their wish to make interior religion the all in all.

King Asoka abolished slavery, denounced war, taught spiritual religion and purity of life, founded hospitals, forbade blood sacrifices, and inculcated religious toleration, two centuries before the birth of Christ.

Centuries before King Asoka the Buddhists sent out missionaries all over the world.

Which religion was the borrower from the other--Buddhism or Christianity?

Two centuries before Christ, King Asoka had cut upon the rocks these words:

I pray with every variety of prayer for those who differ with me in creed, that they, following after my example, may with me attain unto eternal salvation. And whoso doeth this is blessed of the inhabitants of this world; and in the next world endless moral merit resulteth from such religious charity --Edict XI.

How many centuries did it take the Christians to rise to that level of wisdom and charity? How many Christians have reached it yet?

But the altruistic idea is very much older than Buddha, for it existed among forms of life very much earlier and lower than the human, and has, indeed, been a powerful factor in evolution.