How Does Ashoka Create A Harmonious Society

Ashoka consolidated and increased his power by converting to peace by making a set of laws. “His family created an empire by conquering other kingdoms in brutal wars. When Ashoka became the king he continued to fight wars and expand the empire. In his eighth year as the king, he went to war against the rulers of a section of India called Kalinga. Ashoka’s armies won the Kalinga War in which, according to historical sources, 100,000 people were killed and 150,000 people were forced to leave their homes. As he stated in one of his edicts, Ashoka “felt profound sorrow and regret” for the “slaughter, death, and deportation” his war caused.” Ashoka caused a war and then he felt sorry so he decides to convert to Buddhism for peace. “ From that point

The edicts are Asoka's messages that have traveled far and wide with Asoka being loved by the Gods. Asoka was instilling this into the minds of the people of his empire but Asoka was confident enough to hold himself to high standards and was well prepared to take on the responsibilities of being a God-like-figure to the people. Document E also states that, “The Beloved of the Gods believes that one who does wrong should be forgiven as far as it is possible to forgive him.” This made Asoka feel as though the war he created was acceptable because he believes everyone should find it possible to forgive him as he sought Buddha and perched beneath the Bodhi tree.

His philosophies said that the goal of an emperor is to bring peace to the people, the philosophies also promoted fairness and loyalty among the state.

In ancient China, many different rulers tried to unify and rule the country using a variety of methods – Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism to name a few. Each philosophy had its own set of rules of how people should act both in public and privately. The overall goal of each philosophy was to set a standard of acceptable living that would ensure harmony and success for the society. However, each was different and thus had different results.

The rulers also known as absolute monarchs had made a major change during this time. Since, people thought that they have gotten their power from god, they have lived their lives knowing that they have complete power of what they wanted to control, which were their nation and they always wanted more power than they already carry. The aims for absolute monarchy was to provide prosperity, order, and stability for their territories so monarchs that would take complete control would usually have the characteristics of having high taxes, building projects, justice, their own freedom, strong militaries, foreign policy and administration. This time of

One of Ashoka’s most convicting beliefs was the abstention of harming any living being. This is evident by his conversion to peace loving Buddhism after the gruesome Kalinga war. However, he did make it clear that if his subjects did not reform or submit to his rule, he would have to punish them

Imagine you have a project due, you haven’t even started working on it yet and you need it done by the next day. If you don’t get the project done, you will get a detention and will not be allowed to go to the mall. You decide to fake being sick so you could work on it. You end up finishing the project while you are “sick” and you turn it in in time. Does the goal justify your actions? Ashoka had a similar problem except he killed thousands to achieve peace. He ended up uniting all of India and did achieve peace. Ashoka ruled over the Mauryan Empire, and Ashoka was the first ruler to promote Buddhism. He made a huge impact on many parts of Asia. Ashoka is considered to be either a ruthless warrior or an enlightened ruler: How should history remember him? Ashoka was an enlightened ruler because he stopped going to war with others and he felt remorse and regret for the evil he had done and because he cared for human life.

In “Thoughts from the Tao-te Ching,” Lao-Tzu illustrates the optimal way in which a ruler should lead their country in conformity with the Tao. Lao-Tzu points out that a nation’s government should put in place the slightest governance in the lives of its people, because the good in people will come naturally when the people disregard their efforts to seek these ethics. Finally, Lao-Tzu also encourages that a leader be modest and tolerant by truly taking interest in the civilians needs and concentrating on his home land instead of seeking issues with other worldly places.

Thousands of years ago, when people had just begun to colonize, little was done to keep order in check. Many early civilizations were controlled by kings and others who believe they were a son of God. There was little education and minuscule amounts of structure between these people. The rulers had most of the power and believed that they could make rules to control the people. Today, these laws are considered mostly bias and in favor of the emperor or of the higher class people, and are seen as “unfair.”

Throughout ancient history, there have been a number of ways that human beings have attempted or succeed in governing people. There has been an assortment of religions or philosophical ways that were said to be the best way to lead people, in order to gain power, or whatever their goal might be. Many of these ideas went against each other, saying the other one was wrong. One example of this was Niccole Machiavelli and his philosophical view, through The Prince, that said it was better to be feared than loved as a ruler. Then there is the ancient ‘religion’ of Taoism that was founded by Lao-Tzu. In Religion of the World, it describes the basic virtue of this religion, “Taoists believe that if they

Around 250 BC, Ashoka began to issue one of the most famous edicts in the history of government and instructed his officials to carve them on rocks and pillars, in line with the local dialects and in a very simple fashion. In the rock edicts, Ashoka talks about religious freedom and religious tolerance, he

The Empire was mainly populated with Muslims who practiced Islam and Hinduism. They handled religious and heterogeneous people much more peacefully than the Ottoman Empire. Over a thousand languages were spoken and many different religions were allowed to be worshipped. The Varne system was implemented by the Brahman to keep peace. This Varne system separated Hindus into categories of social rank from the highest rank, “Brahmans” to the lowest, “Untouchables”. The Dharma is a belief that Hindus lived by and believed they needed to fulfill their life duties to move up in the social class chain. Also, during the Mughal Empire Buddhist believed to follow “the four truths” which were about the reality of suffering. Allowing religious and linguistic diversity made it very hard to maintain and rule a dynasty. By having all these diversrse cultures under the Emperor’s leadership brought concern about rioting or the army turning against him. Akbar was one step ahead though and gave individual jobs for each part of his government and army. Each part of the army had someone watching over them called a Mansabdari to prevent a revolt against the Empire. The individual jobs monitored the financial, household, religious, judicial, and army divisions of the Empires. The Mughal was very interested in the arts and sciences, but also focused on expanding territory across India. Akbar built a very strong army,

This week’s reading about India and China was very informative about their ancient forms of governments and how it differs from our original beliefs. In the reading section “Republics and Quasi-Democratic Institutions in Ancient India”, I was exposed to various concepts that I had not been taught in the past. As stated in the reading, “ …Brahmanical treaties found it very easy to visualize Indian society as a politically static one in which, ever since antiquity, monarchy was the normal form of state’(pg. 50). “ I as well assumed India’s government was only consisted of a Monarchial government system. I learned that Buddhist scriptures suggested that there was evidence that India practiced republicanism (pg. 50) It is stated by Muhlberger”the

Confucianism was no way an extreme philosophy. Instead, it features as a moderation balancing the power of majoritarian citizens and that of rulers. Confucianism focused on a conservative social order in which people were assigned specific roles and citizens should conform to the political authority. Rulers were superior to commoners, commoners should observe the social order. However, Confucianists also constrained the rulers by a sound ethical conduct in order to justify the hereditary right of rulers. Confucius argued that rulers should improve his virtue and content the society. Rulers had to a be junzi, or gentlemen with decent qualities to govern the people. Mencius expanded the exercise of ethics. He said the rule of the king should be full of his benevolence toward people and rulers should gain support by providing for the people’s well-being. Confucianists also addressed the importance of the power of the people, as Xun Zi said the water (people) bears it (ruler) up is the same swallows it up. Therefore, Confucianists focused on a relativistic thinking to seek a middle path between people conforming the government and the government caring the

The passage articulated how increase in Buddhism has created more priests and temples at the cost of work and family values. The spread of Buddhism lead to exhaustion of resources of the Empire from 317 C.E through 557 C.E. Gigantic temples and monasteries were like Imperial palaces. Huge amounts of money instead of going into farming and business went into building temples and monasteries. Taizong the Imperial ancestor who ruled during the period 626-649 C.E built the Middle Kingdom by governing his kingdom his accomplished learning and culture. He believed in the power of state but he tried to balance both Buddhism and Chinese values. Zhenguan and Gaiyuan, later instituted radical changes. The Buddhist enjoyed many privileges; they did not pay taxes and were treated differently, which was detrimental to state. These values were at variance with the Confucius values of general applicability of rules to all people within the state. By confiscating land occupied by temples and monasteries and by bringing the monks into the mainstream of the state a healthy balance was achieved which ended the extremes of the first two