res, he employs his
favourite word Dhamma in the strict Buddhist sense, without indicating
that he is giving it an unusual or new meaning. I therefore think it
probable that he became a lay Buddhist soon after the conquest of
Kalinga, that is in the ninth or tenth year after his accession, and a
member of the Sangha two and a half years later. On this hypothesis all
his edicts are the utterances of a Buddhist.

It may be objected that no one could be a monk and at the same time
govern a great empire: it is more natural and more in accordance with
Indian usage that towards the end of his life an aged king should
abdicate and renounce the world. But Wu Ti, the Buddhist Emperor of
China, retired to a monastery twice in the course of his long reign and
the cloistered Emperors of Japan in the eleventh and twelfth centuries
continued to direct the policy of their country, although they abdicated
in name and set a child on the throne as titular ruler. The Buddhist
Church was not likely to criticize Asoka's method of keeping his
monastic vows and indeed it may be said that his activity was not so
much that of a pious emperor as of an archbishop possessed of
exceptional temporal power. He definitely renounced conquest and
military ambitions and appears to have paid no attention to ordinary
civil administration which he perhaps entrusted to Commissioners; he
devoted himself to philanthropic and moral projects "for the welfare of
man and beast," such as lecturing his subjects on their duties towards
all living creatures, governing the Church, building hospitals and
stupas, supervising charities and despatching missions. In all his
varied activity there is nothing unsuitable to an ecclesiastical
statesman: in fact he is distinguished from most popes and prelates by
his real indifference to secular aspirations and by the unusual
facilities which he enjoyed for immediately putting his ideals into
practice.

Asoka has won immortality by the Edicts which he caused to be engraved
on stone[580]. They have survived to the present day and are the most
important monuments which we possess for the early history of India and
of Buddhism. They have a character of their own. A French writer has
said "On ne bavarde pas sur la pierre," and for most inscriptions the
saying holds good, but Asoka wrote on the rocks of India as if he were
dictating to a stenographer. He was no stylist and he was somewhat vain
although, considering his imperial posi