The Kalinga War and Ashoka's turn to Dhamma
- Date
- c. 261 BCE
- Category
- Military & conflict
- Region
- Eastern India (Kalinga / Odisha)
- Era
- Classical Antiquity
- Significance
Around 261 BCE the Mauryan emperor Ashoka conquered Kalinga (coastal Odisha), a war his own thirteenth Major Rock Edict records as causing some 100,000 deaths, many more from disease and famine, and 150,000 deportations.
Ashoka's edicts state that remorse over this carnage turned him toward the Buddha's teaching and a policy of rule by Dhamma — moral law emphasising non-violence, tolerance, welfare and right conduct. Whether his embrace of Buddhism was a sudden conversion or a gradual deepening is debated by historians, but its public consequences were immense. Ashoka inscribed edicts in Prakrit, Greek and Aramaic on rocks and polished sandstone pillars across the subcontinent — the earliest decipherable indigenous writing in India and among the oldest royal proclamations of an ethical, religiously tolerant statecraft anywhere. He built stupas, sponsored Buddhist institutions, and dispatched emissaries abroad, transforming a regional sect into a trans-regional, and ultimately pan-Asian, religion.
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Empires active in c. 261 BCE
- Roman Republic509 BCE – 27 BCE
- Maurya Empire322 BCE – 185 BCE
- Odrysian Kingdom480 BCE – 46 CE
- Seleucid Empire312 BCE – 63 BCE
- Ptolemaic Kingdom305 BCE – 30 BCE
- Kingdom of Kush1070 BCE – 350 CE
Related military & conflict events
- Battle of Gaixia and the founding of the Han dynasty202 BCE
- Battle of Gaugamela destroys the Achaemenid Empire1 October 331 BCE
- Alexander the Great invades the Persian Empire334 BCE
- First Punic War: Rome becomes a naval power264–241 BCE
- Battle of Cannae: Hannibal annihilates a Roman army2 August 216 BCE
- Meng Tian links the northern walls into the Qin Great Wallc. 215–214 BCE
Further reading
The wider story
Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor
Popular history of Maurya's greatest ruler and his rediscovery.
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