Aśoka's 256-night campaign

Abstract

The two recent discussions of the chronology of Aśoka's early missionary activities, as described in his first Minor Rock Edict, came to different conclusions. For the idea of a 256-day pilgrimage, which stems ultimately from mistranslation, Falk had sought to substitute a calculation involving 256 non-consecutive Uposatha nights. Without detailed refutation of Falk's arguments, Norman rejected this result and retained the assumption of a date counted in days from the beginning of a regnal year. Falk's Vedic and Arthaśāstra material points, however, in the right direction. A description of Aśoka as 256-rātra-vyuṣṭo “having spent a 256-day season” would date his proclamation to the close of an eight-month campaigning season, corresponding closely with varṣā-rātra-uṣita Rāma (R 4.19.1), literally ‘having spent the rains season’, but dating the activity in question to the first day of autumn. Late Vedic and epic use of vyuṣṭa and instances of calculation by binary, apparently solar, weeks of 8 days and months of 32 days (of which eight would yield 256), suggest that Aśoka was seeking to give his proselytizing campaign the status of a religious observance defined in Kṣatriya terms. Arthaśāstra includes the proposition that a 32-day military month was used for administrative purposes in the field.Just as in rock edicts the phrase [devānaṃpiyena] … abhisitena lekhite dates events to a regnal year, so [devānaṃpiyena] … vivuṭhena sāvane dates Aśoka's MRE proclamation, but with reference to his years of religious seniority. The additive chronology, more than two years plus more than one year, suggested by Norman and upheld by Falk, is supported by the syntax of the passage. It would tend to associate the MRE with Aśoka's 13th regnal year. Aśoka's epigraphs imply that, inspired perhaps by early residence in Ujjain, he was at first drawing on late Vedic and epic calendrical motifs, before starting to display a knowledge of Vinaya calendrical material in the pillar edicts.