The Maurya empire
The Maurya dynasty was founded by Chandragupta around 321 BCE, shortly after Alexander the Great's campaigns in the north-west. Under Chandragupta and his son Bindusāra, the empire grew to cover most of the subcontinent, ruled from the city of Pāṭaliputra, modern Patna.
Ashoka, Bindusāra's son, came to the throne around 268 BCE and ruled until about 232 BCE.
Beloved of the Gods
In his own inscriptions, Ashoka usually calls himself Devānaṃpiya Piyadasi, 'Beloved of the Gods, of gracious appearance'. For a long time scholars could not be certain this was the same king as the Ashoka of Buddhist legend. The name Ashoka itself appears in a few of the inscriptions, first recognised in the minor rock edict found at Maski in 1915.
His inscriptions were written in a script that had been forgotten. In 1837 the British scholar James Prinsep deciphered the Brāhmī script, and the words of an emperor were read again after two thousand years.
The legend
Buddhist legend remembers Ashoka's early life very differently from his inscriptions. The Aśokāvadāna calls him 'Ashoka the Fierce' and tells of a prison of torture he built before his conversion, and the Mahāvaṃsa says he killed ninety-nine of his brothers to take the throne.
Why it matters
The reach of his empire gave Buddhism a patron with far greater resources and territory than any before.
History and tradition
What historians can say
Ashoka's reign is known from his own inscriptions, among the earliest deciphered writing in India, supported by Greek and later Indian sources. His regnal dates are approximate, commonly given as about 268 to 232 BCE.
What Buddhist tradition remembers
The stories of his cruelty before his conversion come from Buddhist texts written centuries later, which had reason to make his change of heart as dramatic as possible. His own inscriptions say nothing of them.