Ashoka’s Role in Spreading Buddhism. Following the Kalinga War, Ashoka was deeply moved by the immense bloodshed and suffering. Rejecting violence, he turned to Buddhism and began advocating for ...

For Sri Lankans, King Asoka’s name will always be associated with the formal introduction of Buddhism to the island nation. But for historian Professor Nayanjot Lahiri, a keen student of the life of ...

The Great King Ashoka's relentless quest for the revered relic - "The Ashes of the Buddha" - marked the genesis of his transformation and ignited the global spread of Buddhism. As he tirelessly ...

Ashoka’s Buddhism itself is an interesting, politically inflected substance. As you show, he selected aspects of Buddhism and gave them fresh direction to produce something distinct.

According to Buddhist historical sources, King Ashoka organized the Third Buddhist Council under the chairmanship of Moggaliputta Tissa at Pataliputra (now Patna) in 247 B.C.

Twin Ashoka Pillars at Rampurva. Credit: Praanshu / Wikimedia Commons Thematically, the edicts of the rocks and minor pillars, the earliest ones, are fundamentally religious, with continuous ...

The elegantly carved feline figures from the third century B.C., unearthed by the British in northern India, embody both tenets of Buddhism and the power of the emperor.

Starting from the records of Asoka's Western Buddhist Mission, of which the extent is questioned by authorities on Indian history, and Origen's attribution of a knowledge of Buddhism to Britain ...

It’s amazing what a flower will tell you about a society, if you let it. In Sri Lanka, I wanted to follow the lotus out of the murk, where it was cultivated by men like Asoka, into shop stalls ...