I got
a wonderful opportunity to participate in an early morning chanting of the
Buddhist sūtras and offering of prayers at the Aśokan Rock Edicts site of
Dhauli. Dhauli Hills are located on the banks of the river Dayā, 8 km south of Bhubaneswar (capital of Odhisa). The event was organized
by Department of Tourism, Government of Odhisa on 12th April, 2017. More than 100 venerable monks and nuns from Sri
Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Tibet, Korea, Laos, Bangladesh and
India participated in this auspicious event. Dhauli
has a very special place in the history of Buddhism. It was here the 3rd
Mauryan Emperor Aśoka (3rd BCE) in his eighth regnal year (RE-13) fought the Kalinga war that
transformed and motivated him to follow the teachings of the Buddha and establish ‘Dhamma Practice’ (RE-IV).
Pictures
from the chanting at the World Peace Pagoda, Dhauli
In 3rd
BCE, Mauryan dynasty ruled whole of Indian subcontinent baring a few kingdoms
like the Kalinga. With many sea ports on her coast, Kalinga was a maritime
power with oversee colonies. King of Kalinga, according to Greek ambassador
Megasthenes who lived in the court of the first Maurya Emperor Chandragupta
Maurya, maintained for himself a standing bodyguard of ‘60,000 foot soldiers,
1,000 horsemen, and 700 elephants.’
In 269 BCE, Aśoka became the emperor of Magadha Empire. Aśoka sent a letter to Anantha
Padmanabha, the King of Kalinga where Aśoka asked for complete submission of
Kalinga to the Mauryan Empire. This was refused by the king of Kalinga. The
deciding battle was fought on the banks of river Dayā near Dhauli hill. From the side of Kalinga, it was truly a people’s war.
The freedom loving people of Kalinga offered a stiff resistance to the
Mauryan army. The battle was fierce and
claimed the lives of 150,000 warriors of Kalinga and 100,000 Mauryan warriors.  |
A view of River
Dayā from Dhauli Hill
|
The scene of the war presented a
horrible sight, the whole terrain was covered with the corpses of soldiers,
wounded soldiers groaned in severe pain, vultures hovered over their dead
bodies, orphaned children mourning the loss of their nears and dears, widows
looked blank and despaired. It is being said that the battle was so fierce that
in aftermath of the battle, Dayā River turned completely red because of the
bloodshed.
It is said in oral history that one
woman of Kalinga came to Aśoka after the war and said that the battle took away
her husband, father and son from her and she has nothing to live for. Miseries of the war deeply affected Aśoka. He
declared that hence forth there won’t be Bherighoṣa
(sound of the war drums) but Dhammaghoṣa,
the resonance of the teachings of the Buddha. It’s believed after the Kalinga war Aśoka visited Saṅgha (yam me saṁghe upeti) and
probably practiced Dhamma for one
year (RE-I,
Gavimath version).
Aśoka visiting the sangha gets
further credence because 7th CE Chinese monk I-Tsing (Yijing ) saw an image of Aśoka in a
monastery in Magadha where the emperor was attired as a Bhikkhu (Bhikṣu,
a monk).
Thereafter, Aśoka dedicated his entire life in
promoting Dhamma by sending Dhamma missions to far-off lands (RE II, V, XIII) and paid Dhammayātrā-s (Dhamma pilgrimage) to
sacred places associated with Buddha and his prominent disciples. On his 12th and 26th years of reign, Aśoka worked to
spread Dhamma through inscriptions
carved on polished rocks and sandstone pillars. Emperor Aśoka called his edicts Dhamma Edicts (RE-I). While his given name was Aśoka, meaning ‘without sorrow’, as
mentioned in his numerous edicts, he assumed the title Devānaṃpiya Piyadasī, meaning, ‘Beloved-of-the-Gods, he who looks
on with affection.’
 |
Map
depicting Dhamma Missions by Aśoka and places of his Pillar and Rock Edicts
|
Gradually,
in stages, Buddhism came to its ebb in Indian subcontinent by 13th
CE. Odisha was among one of the last strong holds of Buddhism in India. Ancient
remains suggest that the monasteries of Udaygiri, Lalitagiri and Ratnāgiri in
Odhisa continued to flourish till 14th-15th CE.
Major Markham
Kittoe was first to report about the Dhauli rock edicts in 1837. Kittoe noticed
that local people of Bhubaneswar and priests in particular were reluctant in
sharing about the places of worship. Actually, just a few years before 1837, European
antiquarians like Colin Mackenzie and General Stuart had ransacked many places
of worship in and around Bhubaneswar and removed many sacred idols. Kittoe
almost missed the inscription site when the people living in the vicinity of
the inscription decoyed away from spot by assuring him existence of no such place.
Fortunately, returning back a mile, he found a person who led him back to the
inscription place.
Kittoe
noticed that the rock has been hewn and polished for a space of 15ft long and
10ft high and divided into four tablets where the inscription have been deeply
cut. Immediately above the inscription is a terrace
that had the fore half of an elephant (4ft). Because of this elephant the place
was locally called Aswathāmā (legendary elephant Aswathāmā of epic Mahābhārata).
 |
Sketch map
of Aswathāmā rock (Dhauli Rock Edicts) from the Kittoe’s Journals, 1838
|
People
informed Kittoe that the Aswathāmā was worshiped only once in a year when local
priests threw water and besmeared the elephant with red lead. With a great difficulty Kittoe made a copy
of the inscription. He also had to kill a mother bear that was creating
trouble. Kittoe sent the copy of the
inscription to James Princep, Secretary, The Asiatic Society of India. One year
later, Kittoe had to revisit Dhauli when James Princep requested him to
reexamine the transcript and correct the inscription. Kittoe spotted the two
cubs of the Bear which he had killed the previous year. The Bear cubs were now
grown up and were in no mood to welcome the guests.
 |
| Aswathāmā Rock |
 |
| Dhauli Rock Edicts |
In 1837, James Princep successfully
deciphered the Edicts that were discovered from Sanchi, Delhi, Allahabad and
Dhauli. We now know these edicts as Aśokan Edicts. In the following decades, more and more edicts were discovered from
different parts of Indian subcontinent. The Aśokan Edicts are broadly divided
into three categories,
1. Pillar
Edicts (PE, set of 7 edicts) inscribed on monolith pillars discovered at 13
places.
2. Major
Rock Edicts (RE, set of 14 + 2 separate edicts found at Dhauli and Jaugada,
both in Odisha) inscribed on rocks and boulders discovered at 11 places.
3. Minor
Rock Edicts discovered at 21 places.
Aśoka's edicts are
mainly concerned with the reforms he instituted and the moral principles he
recommended in his attempt to create a just and humane society. In his 13th
RE, Asoka has mentioned about his conquest of Kalinga involving a great carnage, captivity and
misery to the people. Surprisingly enough, Aśoka
does not mention in this inscription the name of the King of Kalinga against
whom he fought that deadly war. It was customary in those times for a
victorious king to record the name or names of the kings whom he defeated.
Also, Aśoka has deliberately omitted the 13th RE that talk about the
Kalinga war in his Dhauli Edicts. Instead, in its place two special edicts known Kalinga Edicts which
are conciliatory in nature meant for the pacification of the newly conquered
people of Kalinga are incorporated.
I find it little intriguing
that the 7th CE Chinese monk Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang, Yuan Chwang ) in his accounts has not mentioned
about any of the Aśokan Rock Edicts. We know from his travelogues that he visited
Girnār, Shabāzgarhi and Oḍra but conspicuously he is silent about the Rock
Edicts at these places. Probably, immediately after the collapse of Mauryan Empire,
the Rock Edicts got cut off from the tradition and faded into oblivion. Archaeological
evidence suggests that Dhauli in 1st Millennia CE had flourishing
Buddhist monasteries. In 1970,
Nichidatsu Fujii(1885–1985), a Buddhist monk
from Japan and founder of the Nipponzan-Myōhōji Buddhist Order built
World Peace Pagoda on the Dhauli hill. After centuries of neglect Dhauli has once again a small Buddhist community living here and that makes Dhauli again
a living Buddhist heritage site.
 |
Lalitgiri stūpa, relics of the Buddha were discovered from here.
|
Government
of Odisha is now working towards creating awareness towards the Buddhist past
of Odisha. Excavation and explorations in last 100 odd years has revealed that Buddhism
flourished in Odisha region since 2nd BCE till 15th CE. Excavations
in 1985-92 at Lalitagiri hills have yielded three caskets containing relics. The
Lalitagiri relic casket has no inscriptions but we know many of the relic
caskets discovered from different parts of the Indian subcontinent don’t have
any inscriptions. Archaeological and circumstantial
evidence suggest that many kings in Indian subcontinent reopened the Buddha
relic stūpas made by Aśoka and redistributed the body relics of the
Buddha. The Lalitagiri relics are most
probably Buddhaśarīra
(body relics of the Buddha) that
were enshrined by some king or
prominent monk in 2nd BCE. Unfortunately, all the Buddha relics
discovered from India are currently kept in Museums under lock and key. But
fortunately, Government of Odhisa is now creating an infrastructure to bring back
the relics kept at Bhubaneshwar Museum back to Lalitagiri.
 |
Map
depicting places of discovery of relics of the Buddha
|
Odhisa has
one of the most fascinating Buddhist monastic remains in the World. Monastic
remains of Ratnāgiri, Udaygiri, Langudi and Lalitagiri are the
ideal place to visit and gain an appreciation for the Buddhist iconography.
Some
pictures from Ratnāgiri and Udaygiri
I am thankful to Department of Tourism, Government of Odhisa for inviting me to 4th Kalinga International Buddhist Conclave. I am especially thankful to Dr. Sunil Kumar Patnaik for all his hard work to make the tour memorable and also for offering his latest publication Buddhist Heritage of Odisha to me.
 |
| Dr. Sunil Kumar Patnaik holding his book. |
Bibliography
Patnaik,
S; 2012, Buddhist Heritage of Odisha, Mayur
Publications, Bhubneswar,
Kittoe, M.; 1838, Notes on the Aswastama
inscription at Dhauli near Bhuvaneswar in Orissa, Journal of Asiatic
Society of
Bengal, Vol-VIi, Part-I, (Edited By-James
Princep), Printed by Baptist Mission
Press, Calcutta.
Takakusu, J.; 1998, A Record of the Buddhist Religion by I-Tsing, Munshiram Manoharlal
Publishers, New Delhi,
(Originally published in 1896 by the Clarendon Press, London).
Dhammika,
S; 1994, The Edicts of King Ashoka,
Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri Lanka.
