The Patronage of Emperor Asoka

One of the reasons why the Theravāda tradition has been sustained pretty much in its original form ever since then is because of the Emperor Asoka. He was a warrior-noble king about whom it was said, in typical mythical fashion, that he killed 99 of his brothers in order take over the throne. He then proceeded to work on the rest of India, conquering the vast majority of the Indian subcontinent.

After a particularly gruesome battle with the Kalingans, where there were about 60,000 dead, he looked out over the sea of groaning, weeping, bleeding, and dismembered bodies and was suddenly struck by the folly of his ways. He realized, “This really is a terrible track that I’ve got myself onto.” But of course by then he’d conquered the whole of India, so he could afford to give himself some breathing space. He also realized, “I’ve got to do something about my spiritual life because if I don’t do something quickly, I’m in bad, bad trouble.”

He invited different teachers from different sects — not just Buddhist — to come and explain their teachings to him. One after another, different people came, but nobody was very convincing to him. Then one day, from the window of his palace, he saw a young Buddhist novice walking down the street. He was so struck by the demeanor of this child (only seven years old) that he thought, “How could such a young child have such a noble bearing and look so serene?” So he told his people to bring the child into the palace.

The king invited him in and said, “Please take a seat.” The novice, knowing the protocol that a member of the Sangha should never sit lower than a lay person, and seeing that the only high chair in the place was the throne, climbed up onto the king’s throne. Even if Asoka hadn’t killed 99 of his brothers and conquered all India, this would have raised a few hairs on the back of his neck.

So he said to the novice, “What do you think you’re doing climbing on the throne?” The novice said something like, “The Dhamma is that which is supreme in the world. Having given my life to the realization of that Truth, it is my obligation to put myself in a seat which represents that.” The Emperor then started asking him questions. He was so impressed with the answers the novice gave, he thought, “I’ve got to find out who this child’s teachers are.”

It turned out that the boy was from the Theravāda school of the Buddha’s disciples. Eventually that was the school that Asoka espoused, and since he was by then in charge of India, he decided India would become a Buddhist nation. Primarily he patronized the Theravāda tradition, although he also gave support to other Buddhist lineages as well as to various non-Buddhist sects. Later his son and daughter, Mahinda and Sanghamitta, went to Sri Lanka — Sanghamitta was a bhikkhuni, a Buddhist nun, and Mahinda was a monk.

They took the Theravāda tradition to Sri Lanka and established it there in about 240 BCE.

This reflection by Ajahn Amaro is from the booklet, Theravāda Buddhism in a Nutshell, (pdf) pp. 2-3.