Edicts of Ashoka: Session 2

How does Asoka imagine the relationship between the people and Asoka?

Here are some thoughts on how Asoka imagines the relationship between himself and the people:

  • Asoka attempts to have a direct and to some degree personal relationship with all the people of the empire, of any class, religious sect, and location (P6).
  • The king himself: The king himself travels throughout his empire and meets with all kinds of people (naming priests/ascetics, aged, and rural people in R8).
  • The king through intermediaries: He maintains a state apparatus, with a harem, officials, provincial governors, “dharma-spreaders” (P5), and lower ranks, but these people are apparently imagined as primarily intermediaries for Asoka that allow him to reach more people, not as independent agents with their own wills: undifferentiated and personality-less officials act in accordance with Asoka’s precepts (P1) and handle the distribution of gifts from Asoka (P7) and whenever there is a dispute about one of Asoka’s orders he personally intervenes, no matter the time of day (R6).
  • The king as idea and voice: Finally, Asoka becomes known to the whole people as an idea and voice: through the fame and glory of his Dharma (R10), both now and into the future, and through the inscriptions themselves, which give us Asoka’s own voice in the first person.
  • Good things flow from the king and his family to the people. The most obvious good thing that he attempts to spread of course is Dharma through precepts and instruction, but he also provides material goods to the people. The king, his queens (note plural) and his sons distribute gifts to “worthy recipients of charity” (the poor? worthy priests/ascetics?) (P5). There is little discussion of any other state functions other than these gifts from the state to the people, though the four apparently essential state functions are defined as “to govern… to administer justice… to advance the people’s happiness (?)… and to protect them” (P1). There is little detail in the edicts though about how those functions work.
  • Little is asked in return from the people back to Asoka or the state in general. We hear nothing about taxes, military service, obedience to Asoka, prayers to state gods, participation in governance, etc. The central demand placed on the people is a commitment to Dharma, defined repeatedly as good behavior toward superiors (obedience to parents, elders, teachers), peers (liberality to priests, ascetics, friends, relatives), and inferiors (proper treatment of slaves and servants), truthfulness, and abstention from killing animals (P5~R11~R4~BRE2). Despite the strong social hierarchy, proper Dharma does not apparently have any requirements for how one treats the king.
  • Proper Dharma then applies to all people; in proper Dharma, one must treat well the people one knows, but one has no requirements to the king or state. What is asked of the people recalls the NT, which similarly valorizes obedience to parents (Ephesians 6:1-2, “‘Honor your father and mother’—this is the first commandment…”) and rejects ethical commitments to the state (Mark 12:13-7, “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”).

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why does Odysseus reject Calypso’s offer to stay with her forever? (Catherine Project 8)

 Catherine Project, Spring 2024, Homer -- Response 8,  Od. 5-8 When Calypso tells Odysseus he may go home now if he wishes, she repeats her offer (apparently offered many times before) that Odysseus could instead stay with her, be lord of the household, and be immortal (Od. 5.208-210; cf. 5.135-6, 7.255-7, 23.333-8); Calypso thinks that Odysseus wants to see his wife, even though Calypso is more beautiful. Odysseus readily admits that Calypso, as an immortal goddess, is more beautiful, but even so he wants to see his home and his day of homecoming.  Putting aside what Calypso gets out of the deal (epic’s male perspective assumes Calypso would of course want Odysseus), I personally have always found it hard to understand Odysseus’ response and choice here. Immortality with a beautiful, loving goddess on an island paradise (5.63-76) would seem pretty close to the ideal human condition, even by the Od.’s standards. What Calypso offers sounds a lot like what is promised t...
Read more

Achilles Tatius

Outline of the whole work at https://docs.google.com/document/d/11rmnyWDzCEN2surASr83wxULyQeh06K6y8eQQQ84Xrc/edit?usp=sharing Some closing thoughts on Achilles Tatius: Quite a mix of genres: paradoxography, geography, ecphrasis, legal speech/rhetoric, light philosophy. At times the narrative is clearly being constructed in order to provide an excuse for some setpiece, e.g. the description of the phoenix that ends book 3. Book placement: as that phoenix anecdote exemplifies, books often end in a high point, e.g. book 5 ends in the climactic lovemaking between Kleitophon and Melite. Women are underdeveloped in the text: we rarely see things from their perspective, and even when we do (e.g. Leucippe’s narration at the end of the work or Melite’s pleas in book 5), their motivations are thin. Leucippe is particularly bad – she never really arises above the level of passive, beautiful love interest. The work plays with the cliches of love (perhaps a motivating force for the genre as a whole)...
Read more

Solon 27

Solon 27 A child, still young, grows his teeth and throws them out in his first seven years (0-7). When god fulfills the next seven (8-14), he shows the signs of hebe. In the third (15-21), his beard and limbs grows, changing the skin's flower. In the fourth (22-28), everyone is by far the best in strength, when men reach the peaks of arete. In the fifth (29-35), it's time for a man to think about marriage and to seek the generation of children. In the sixth (36-42), a man's mind sharpens about everything, and he no longer wants to do dumb things. In the seventh (43-49) and eighth (50-56), he is by far the best in mind and tongue. Of both there are fourteen years. In the ninth (57-63), he still is able, but his tongue and wisdom are softer toward great arete. If he should achieve the tenth (64-70) and reach his full measure, not untimely would he obtain death's share. 
Read more