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Ashoka Impact On Ashoka

Decent Essays

In India during the sixth century, a religion, Buddhism, was founded by Siddhartha Gautama after he meditated for forty-nine days under a Bodhi Tree and became enlightened with a way for people to reach Nirvana. Buddhism was a religion that concentrated on finding peace and understanding so that Buddhist would no longer have to be reincarnated. He shared his news during his first sermon known as the “First Sermon at Benares” to five of his companions, but other people surrounded and listened to his message. Many people became influenced by Gautama, the Buddha’s, teachings including a Mauryan Dynasty king during the time of 269-233 B.C.E. named Ashoka. Ashoka decided to rule as a Buddhist king after the Battle of Kalinga due to the amount …show more content…

Instead, Ashoka focuses primarily on finding a happy state. Ashoka states, “Happiness in this world and the next is difficult to obtain without much love for Dhamma, much self-examination, much respect, much fear (of evil), and much enthusiasm.” Evidently through the quote, one can understand Ashoka not only concentrates more on happiness instead of Nirvana, but he also focuses more on being reborn as something that would please him instead of not being reborn at all. Although Buddha might agree with some of Ashoka’s ideas of how Buddhist should conduct themselves, he would not agree that happiness in the world should be the ultimate goal, but that our goal should be a “middle path” full of enlightenment and understanding.
Buddha also believed in certain steps called the Noble Truths that he spoke was the way to reach Nirvana, but Ashoka did not particularly go by Buddha’s path due to his concentration focusing mainly on committing good deeds. The Noble Truths instruct that for one to achieve Nirvana they must reveal what they are suffering from, where it is coming from in there life, get rid of the lust that is creating the suffering, and then follow the noble eightfold plan. The noble eightfold plan is the way a Buddhist should behave. A very important part of this plan that Ashoka does not focus on is getting rid of the lust that causes suffering. Buddha states, “And how can anyone be free from self by leading a

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