Nayanjot Lahiri wins a major international prize for her biography of Ashoka
(also included below is the IESHR review of May 2017)
(also included below is the IESHR review of May 2017)
October
3, 2016
Professor Lahiri’s biography
was edited and typeset at Permanent Black, India’s leading academic publisher,
and will be available in paperback later this month. (The American edition was
offset from the Indian edition and published by Harvard University Press.) The
series in which the South Asia edition appears, called “Hedgehog and Fox”,
conceived and managed by the Ashoka University Chancellor, Rudrangshu
Mukherjee, comprises what has been widely recognized as the cream of recent
historical scholarship on South Asia.
To quote from the judges’
statement: “Reversing all conventions of kingship, the Emperor Ashoka recorded
his greatest military triumph as tragedy, proclaiming an order of non-violence
. . . Lahiri deftly adjudicates between archaeological, textual, and
geographical evidence to offer a dazzling interpretation of a remarkable figure
of the ancient world and a deep history of ancient society. Her innovative
linking of archaeology and biography recasts our understanding of historical
methods and ancient worlds alike.”
Paperback, Rs 595
THE IESHR REVIEW (MAY 2017):
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Paperback, Rs 595
THE IESHR REVIEW (MAY 2017):
In the introduction to this volume,
historian and archaeologist Nayanjot Lahiri asks: 'Why another Ashoka?' For, the celebrated third century BC Mauryan emperor has been the subject of
numerous monographs and studies. She provides two answers.
First,
Aśoka is a figure of enduring fascination to whom scholars,
politicians and writers have continued to return over time, and the book is
meant for a popular audience: ‘readers
who enjoy digs into the past’ (p. 21). Second, and more substantively, she seeks to present ‘a narrative
account of Ashoka in which a clear path that follows the trajectory of his life
cuts through the jungle of legends and traditions, the epigraphs and monuments,
and the archaeological facts and detail that
surround them’ (p. 21). On both counts, Lahiri has delivered, presenting an accessible and
engaging biography of the emperor in his time that navigates the complex
terrain of available evidence.
The
great challenge in an undertaking of this kind has to do with the nature of our sources. While Aśoka’s
edicts are the most remarkable and personal documents of the ancient period, they cover only a few
years of his reign and are silent on the rest of his life. They must be supplemented,
therefore, by much later legendary accounts of uncertain historical value, primarily
the Aśokāvadāna
(ca. second century CE
) and the Sri Lankan Pāli
chronicles Dīpavaṃsa
(ca. fourth century CE)
and Mahāvaṃsa (ca. fifth century CE). Anyone
seeking to use them to discover the historical Aśoka will either have to present novel historiographical methods for
extracting historical evidence from them or settle for a rather more
speculative approach. Lahiri seeks to split the difference.
Methodologically, the book attempts to use
archaeology as a historiographical touchstone: ‘The reliability of historical
detail in such texts . . . can be assessed by juxtaposing them with what can be
reconstructed about those times through archaeological evidence’ (p. 6). This method
contributes greatly to our understanding of the world that shaped Aśoka and how considerations of locale may have influenced
his messages and their reception, and the book often shifts its focus away from
biographical narrative, which sometimes recedes into the distance. It is rather
less successful, however, in separating the historical milk from the legendary water,
and Lahiri freely recognises that any comprehensive biography of Aśoka will require speculation and that plausibility
will often have to substitute for evidence (p. 104). And so the book blends legend
with history to tell the story of Aśoka’s
life. For the most part, Lahiri is careful to distinguish between the two,
although one does occasionally detect a slippage between them.
The story Lahiri traces begins with predictions
of Aśoka’s birth and extends to his death and historical
afterlife. The first four chapters relate
his birth, early life as a prince, dispatch to Taxila by his father Bindusāra to quell an uprising, his marriage to Devī and his viceroy ship in Ujjayinī—all as related in the legends. These tales are
contextualised with abundant archaeological and geographical information about the
sites where they are to have occurred: Pāṭaliputra,
Taxila, Vidiśā, and Ujjayinī and the routes between. It is in these digressions into landscapes
and lifeways that the present volume truly shines. The fifth chapter covers Aśoka’s
bloody accession to the throne and his cataclysmic invasion of Kaliṅga, shifting in the process from legend to the
firmer historical ground of the edicts. From the sixth to the eleventh
chapters, there is a focus on the edicts, both their contents and their
settings, as well as Aśoka’s
activity as a patron of religious sites and institutions. Here, a more personal
picture of the man emerges. Lahiri gives a nuanced account of Aśoka’s development, from a zealous Buddhist convert,
finding his imperial voice, to a mature and repentant political visionary
seeking to rule through righteousness, to Buddhist leader, to ‘an impatient and
imperious old sovereign’ (p. 262) looking back on his efforts and their results,
and, finally, to his wasting away in piety
and grief. A brief epilogue considers Aśoka in
historical memory, which confirms the image
she has sketched of him ‘virtually as a Buddhist zealot . . . the archetypal Buddhist
king that so often recurs seems clear evidence of how he fashioned his image’ (p.
306).
Lahiri has produced what is probably the best biography
of Aśoka to date, but it is clearly written for a general
audience rather than for specialists, who are apt to feel that she is more often speaking past them than engaging
them. Textualists, in particular, may feel
that the author is insufficiently critical in her use of sources, relying, it seems, on English translations
and the textual expertise of others. As
such, this book breaks no new ground in
our understanding of the sources themselves. Nevertheless, it does make significant
contributions to Asokan studies, particularly by embedding the legends and edicts in a robust archaeological
and geographic
context, which yield valuable insights into how the
messages
were shaped, disseminated and received. What is more, Lahiri takes seriously the internal chronology of the edicts as a means for thinking
about the evolution of the man himself, something
future studies will undoubtedly seek to build upon. Her interpretations of Asoka’s psychology, however, are
sometimes of questionable value, as they are not
always rigorously juxtaposed with
possible alternate interpretations of the
textual features upon which they are based.
For instance, is Asoka's repeated insistence in
the major rock edicts that dhamma endure
beyond his reign really a sign of his ‘deep
insecurity’? (p. 193) Other explanations suggest themselves.
Ashoka
in Ancient India is a welcome and valuable addition to the literature on the Mauryan dynasty.
Lahiri has produced a uniquely accessible volume that draws
readers into the landscapes of Mauryan India and guides them through a rich
encounter with the Asoka of edict and legend. The difficulties in such an undertaking
are immense, and no single approach will satisfy all audiences. For all
of us, however, Lahiri has succeeded in giving
a more personal feel for Asoka as a man and for the places and lives of the Mauryan
period, bringing us closer to this alluring
and elusive personality from the past.
Mark McClish
Northwestern University
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