RELG 252 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Maurya Empire, Flag Of India, Bhavacakra
11 Sep 2019
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Document Summary
Becomes an important king for buddhism and much later for india as a nation state. Almost the entirety of today"s india, pakistan, a little of afghanistan, central asia, myanmar was his. He seems to have been very devoted to buddhism after having a change of heart. Was active in trying to convert people, but no longer by brute force [the change of heart] Put pillars all across his empire in some key spots. Had all kinds of inscriptions on these pillars, like declarations of himself as a. This was very good for buddhism -- started to spread out a lot more than it had before. We see the asoka chakra on the indian flag. Sri lanka: via mahinda [one of asoka"s sons who became a monk] sent to sri lanka to spread buddhism around 247 bce. In that period, buddhism also spread to vietnam, burma, circa 274bce [again from china]
