Comment
Author: Admin | 2025-04-27
History.[22] As Ashoka's edicts forbade both the killing of wild animals and the destruction of forests, he is seen by some modern environmental historians as an early embodiment of that ethos.[23][24] In July 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru, the interim prime minister of India, proposed in the Constituent Assembly of India that Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath be the State Emblem of India, and the 24-pointed Buddhist Wheel of Dharma on the capital's drum-shaped abacus the central feature of India's national flag. The proposal was accepted in December 1947.[25]EtymologyThe domains of Ashoka are addressed as 𑀚𑀁𑀩𑀼𑀤𑀻𑀧 Jaṃbudīpa in his edicts. This term, meaning "island/continent of jambu", is the common name for the entire Indian subcontinent in ancient Indian sources. Neighbouring cultures usually adressed this land by a variety of exonyms, such as the Greek Ἰνδῐ́ᾱ (Indíā, derived from the Indus River), which gave most European languages the common name for the subcontinent, including English. Both of these terms are, however, more geographical than political, and in common parlance could include areas outside of the Mauryan control.The name "Maurya" does not occur in any of the Edicts of Ashoka, or the contemporary Greek accounts such as Megasthenes's Indica, but it is attested by the following sources:[26]The Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman (c. 150 CE) prefixes "Maurya" to the names Chandragupta and Ashoka.[26]The Puranas (c. 4th century CE or earlier) use Maurya as a dynastic appellation.[26]The Buddhist texts state that Chandragupta belonged to the "Moriya" clan of the Shakyas, the tribe to which Gautama Buddha belonged.[26]The Jain texts state that Chandragupta was the son of an imperial superintendent of peacocks (mayura-poshaka).[26]Tamil Sangam literature also designate them as 'moriyar' and mention them after the Nandas[27]Kuntala inscription (from the town of Bandanikke, North Mysore) of 12th century AD chronologically mention Maurya as one of the dynasties which ruled the region.[28]According to some scholars, Kharavela's Hathigumpha inscription (2nd-1st century BCE) mentions era of Maurya Empire as Muriya Kala (Mauryan era),[29] but this reading is disputed: other scholars—such as epigraphist D. C. Sircar—read the phrase as mukhiya-kala ("the principal art").[30]According to the Buddhist tradition, the ancestors of
Add Comment