Ashoka the Great - The Buddist Expansion #3 - Extra History

Northeast India Circa 3rd Century BCE the chamber underneath the stupa has Lane undisturbed for two centuries until suddenly the door seal breaks inside steps King Ashoka leader of the Moria Empire a crown he'd won through murder and an empire built by violence but the slaughter of those battles had caused a change in him previously a ruthless killer he's now renounced violence and War in service of another mission devoting himself to the practice and spread of Buddhism and he's come here to get his hands on a powerful Relic that is of course if he can get by the guards a flash in the dark a grind of gears two automatons carine out of the darkness animated by possessing Spirits their arms spinning blades Ashoka parries their blows looking for the Arcane workings that will put them under his power the story claims that when King Ashoka eventually emerged from that burial stupa the two Golems were following him as his servants though they were not the greatest prize for now he carried in his hands the ashes of the Buddha [Music] don't forget as soon as you're done watching this episode The Next Episode in this series is already up a week early in ad-free over on nebula besides the Buddha himself Ashoka the great may be the most important figure in early Buddhism because by adopting Buddhism as his court religion Ashoka fulfilled a similar role as Constantine played in Christianity helping the young religion spread and gain legitimacy though before we get more into Ashoka we should really talk about our goals with this series because you might have noticed by this point that we've been fairly Bare Bones about describing Buddhist beliefs here our aim is to chart the foundation spread Evolution and historical impact of Buddhism not to explain every element of Buddhist practice and cosmology because I'm just going to be honest y'all Buddhism is often just really hard to explain heck even religious Scholars and lifelong Buddhists can struggle to understand certain Concepts or texts case in point Rob has a degree in religion and some background in Buddhism it is brain practically melted while researching this for example does Buddhism have a god well no there is no crater deity the world just exists in an endless cycle driven by a chain of causal relay relationships okay then who are Buddhists praying to when they venerate statues of the Buddha well technically the answer is no one Buddhas achieve Nirvana so he gone but he gave you the tools to achieve enlightenment and you have to do the rest yourself meaning the veneration of Buddha images is partially just gratitude partially to use it as a focal point for your own self-development and partially in hopes that offerings and chants will build Merit that lead to better rebirths but wait hold on again don't people call on Celestial beings and bodhisattvas for things like healing also isn't there Yama the god of death well yes I mean depending on what branch of Buddhism we're talking about and how it fused with local traditions and yeah you can kind of see how this can just become a nesting doll of explanations and caveats if we're not careful so as a result we are trying to focus on the basic tenets partially for our sake of course but also because when Buddhism spread it was often these similar teachings that people adopted sure monks dove into the more esoteric subjects of course but the average person largely approached it as a practical moral system to guide their lives which does Circle us nicely back to King Ashoka one of the greatest monarchs of world history who had been largely forgotten until the 19th century in 1836 an East India Company officer named James princip deciphered an ancient script used on dozens of rock and pillar monuments across India some of which contained other languages such as Aramaic and Greek meaning that over the next two years he was able to translate and read the incredible story those monuments contained and the story they told once they pieced together several honorific names realizing The Monuments were all commissioned by the same man was that of a converted King eight years into ashoka's Reign he finally conquered the Kalinga region making him the first to control nearly all of the Indian Peninsula as well as parts of what is now Afghanistan and Bangladesh his Empire included Greek and Aramaic speaking minorities and according to his inscriptions and certain mentions in Greek texts he appears to have exchanged ambassadors with the Hellenistic World sending representatives to Alexandria Macedon and other Greek kingdoms his Stone inscriptions the first found in India actually appear to be imports from the accumulated Empire of Persia and it's been suggested he actually imported Persian stonemasons to do the carvings which explains why his personal symbol of the lion looks so Persian In Style by the way those carvings became so famous that the lions from his pillars became part of the Seal of Modern India and his symbol of the wheel is on their flag yeah he's kind of a big deal yet according to the oldest rock inscriptions it was at the scene of his final Conquest that his Reign took a drastic turn turns out the conquest of Kalinga had sickened him and the ten thousand men he'd killed in battle not to mention more civilians began to finally weigh heavy on his conscience So within the next two years Ashoka gradually converted to Buddhism and decided to govern his Empire on Buddhist principles which caused him to fully renounce violence Buddhist Legend tells that before this conversion Ashoka was a real over-the-top cartoon style villain he just loved killing everyone in various Itchy and Scratchy kind of ways including supposedly 99 of his half-brothers to take the actual Throne of course much like Buddha's robot tomb guardians from the beginning of this episode These Legends come from hundreds of years after his death and are almost certainly fictional however we don't want to totally trust his inscriptions either since they probably contain at least an element of propaganda so just keep all that in mind you know spin from both directions and all that according to his inscriptions Ashoka founded monasteries and built stupas all over his territory including some at Major sites of the Buddha's life in fact we mostly know about the locations of siddhartha's life from these monuments built 200 years after his death these include pillars at the site of Buddha's birthplace his first sermon and the location of the Bodhi Tree where Ashoka also built a stone Throne on the site of siddhartha's Enlightenment he also went on the hunt for relics Excavating Buddha's original burial stupa and supposedly finding seven of the eight portions of Buddha's ashes before apportioning them to monasteries across India but he spread more than relics many of his religious inscriptions contain basic summaries of Buddhist ethics Ashoka would send officials to gather the local populations around these monuments and read them aloud to spread Buddhist principles however ashoka's campaign of religious diffusion was also practical his inscriptions stated an official policy of religious toleration and he gave money to non-budist sects not to mention the Buddhist inscriptions were generally focused on the Here and Now how governing the Empire along Buddhist principles and the people adopting Buddhist morals themselves would improve his subjects lives they emphasized compassion for All Creatures and respect for family he also instituted what we'd call today infrastructure policies Ashoka sent cuttings of medical plants across his Empire so each Community would have access to a Botanical Garden of healing spices and plants he ordered Banyan trees mango Groves and Wells placed along the roadside to provide food water and shelter for travelers and crucially he abolished the death penalty but his most radical act actually involved animals Ashoka ceased hunting ordered that animal sacrifices stop that his Royal kitchens phase out meet and established medical facilities specifically to treat animals actually he disavowed the killing of certain animals entirely which are considered some of the first Environmental Protection laws I know right here's where things get contentious though see those laws that centered around the disallowing of animal sacrifices could be seen as directly targeting brahmanism the proto-hinduism the majority of his subjects practiced this along with buddhism's anti-caste system mentality were pretty radical moves back in the day though honestly they are actually still controversial in the majority Hindu Modern India which tend to downplay these more radically Buddhist qualities in order to shape Ashoka into a more unifying nationalist figure and though you don't want to trust Legends entirely Buddhist tales about him suggest these restrictions on traditional brahmana practices like sacrifice were not taken well even then after 40 Years of rule including a 30-year stretch considered the most peaceful in the Region's history it's said that ashoka's Sons got sick of their father's religious policies and huge donations to monasteries they deposed him but he kept on making donations in emulation of the Buddha his last act just before dying was to give away his final possession a a half piece of fruit but despite his unification of much of India his internal spread of Buddhism and all his social programs and you know fighting those robots it was said that his greatest Pride came from the missionaries he sent abroad ashoka's envoys had spread Buddhism as far as Sri Lanka which still looks at him as a founding figure and they would go much further still into the rice fields and Spice Islands of Southeast Asia triggering artistic Innovation religious melding war and games of capture the Buddha and we'll get into all that next week next week's for suckers narrator Matt I'm watching that capture the Buddha action right now nebula first for the win baby that is correct casual Matt the next episode in this series is available right now a full week early thanks to the support from nebula care to give us a sneak peek hell yeah bro this one gets Bonkers pretty quick lightning arcs down crashing into the monastery stupa and when the Abbott goes to inspect the damage he finds a luminous green statue the famed Emerald Buddha it had been taken to Sri Lanka to save it from Civil War then to Anchor wat then it was captured by a Thai Army who hid it in this stupa I guess possession of it granted an almost mythical legitimacy to any ruler so naturally the Abbott's King wanted it sent to his capital in Chiang Mai but the elephant carrying it stubbornly went to another city instead actually with the nebula first feature over on nebula you get access to a whole bunch of great content from our creator friends way earlier than you can see it on YouTube sure sure but you're kinda like burying the lead I think because thanks to Big Daddy nebula's support right we can release all of our extra history series episodes at least a full week early over there too true cashmere but actually what I love watching on nebula are a ton of my favorite creators like tirzu mooncat and Chef PK all without ads like this one oh I thought you loved ads hey shut up not to mention nebulous home to a ton of other original shows you can't see anywhere else yeah those are kind of the best too actually I just got finished watching wendover's latest original on the logistics of commercial fishing turns out I had no idea how this multi-billion dollar industry actually gets fish from whatever water they're found in to my plate Never Gonna Take My Sushi for granted again I'll tell you that will bishmat with all with all content nebula sure must cost a pretty penny or at least as much as other streaming services nope actually an annual nebula plan will set you back 50 bucks total for a year but if you do sign up with our link below they knock 20 bucks off that price meaning you pay two dollars and fifty cents a month for this phenomenal streaming service that bonus doesn't oh I don't know randomly remove shows from its Library whenever they don't want to pay writers residuals dang casual Matt's going hard on this one oh I'm sorry but I am just so about that okay okay well of course I could keep talking to me myself and angry eye all day about how nebula is awesome and its shows are great and that you directly support all of its creators when you sign up but I just do think that you should check it out for yourself because it really is that great and don't forget that when you sign up again using our link below your subscription directly supports our channel so thanks so much for that XX Academy all right deep breaths buddy come on let's go watch some jet lag well I hear they uh they go to Japan in that one they sure do pal they sure do what if I told you that Ahmed Ziad Turk Angela valenciana archolite games Casey Musta Dominic valenciana Joseph blame kuyakoi and Skyler Holmes were all legendary patrons I'm not kidding [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Extra History

Views: 132,559

Keywords: extra history, history lesson, learn history, world history, history channel, documentry, history lectures, history documentary, history explained, educational videos, civilization, history, lecture, documentary history ancient, weird history, explained, animated history, animated, animated stories, lesson, study, educational, home learning, ancient history, study history, buddhism, buddhism explained, indian history, inda, Prince Siddhartha, ashoka the great, history of india

Id: Vpv6ZsXR1aA

Length: 12min 33sec (753 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 12 2023