Searching for Ashoka
eBook - ePub

Searching for Ashoka

Questing for a Buddhist King from India to Thailand

  1. 258 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Searching for Ashoka

Questing for a Buddhist King from India to Thailand

About this book

Reveals how the persona of India's most famous emperor was constantly reinvented in ancient times to suit a variety of social visions, political agendas, and moral purposes.

Blending travelogue, history, and archaeology, Searching for Ashoka unravels the various avatars of India's most famous emperor, revealing how he came to be remembered-and forgotten-in distinctive ways at particular points in time and in specific locations. Through personal journeys that take her across India and to various sites and cities in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand, archaeologist Nayanjot Lahiri explores how Ashoka's visibility from antiquity to the modern era has been accompanied by a reinvention of his persona. Although the historical Ashoka spoke expansively of his ideas of governance and a new kind of morality, his afterlife is a jumble of stories and representations within various Buddhist imaginings. By remembering Ashoka selectively, Lahiri argues, ancient kings and chroniclers created an artifice, constantly appropriating and then remolding history to suit their own social visions, political agendas, and moral purposes.

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Yes, you can access Searching for Ashoka by Nayanjot Lahiri in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Theology & Religion & Asian History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title
  3. Copyright
  4. Contents
  5. Preface and Acknowledgements
  6. Introduction: Encountering Ashoka
  7. 1 Imaging Ashoka at Sanchi
  8. 2 Among Kings at Kanaganahalli
  9. 3 On the Edge of a Junagadh Lake
  10. 4 Looking Back at Barabar
  11. 5 Searching Siblings in Sri Lanka
  12. 6 Among Relics and Shrines in Myanmar
  13. 7 Ashokas in Thailand
  14. 8 Fabricating Remembrance
  15. Bibliography
  16. Index
  17. Back Cover