Re: [INDOLOGY] Was Aśoka an iconoclast?

[Valerie Roebuck]

The idea that image (‘idol’) worship was common in Aśoka's time is surely anachronistic.

Valerie J Roebuck
Manchester, UK

> On 26 May 2017, at 07:46, Artur Karp via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> 
> Dear List, 
> 
> From B. R. Ambedkar's address to an international gathering at Colombo (on 5 June 1950): 
> 
> <<In India, like the village deity and national deity, there were family deities also who were worshipped through the Brahmins. The priests who used to go for worshipping these deities started influencing the affairs of the State through the queens. Asoka after embracing Buddhism discontinued this practice and removed the idols of such deities. Asoka said, "As I venerate the Buddha, the Enlightened One, there is no need to worship any other deity".>>
> 
> The address is quoted in Lella Karunyakara's "Modernisation of Buddhism. Contributions of Ambedkar and Dalai Lama-XIV" Gyan Publishing House, New Delhi 2002, p 225 - without any comment. 
> 
> It is quoted again - in a different context, but also without comment - in Himanshu Prabha Ray's "Interpreting the Mauryan Empire: Centralized State or Multiple Centres of Control", in: Grant Parker and Carla Sinopoli eds. Ancient India in its Wider World, University of Michigan 2008, footnote 3. 
> 
> And again in 2015, at:
> 
> https://drambedkarbooks.com/2015/06/05/5th-june-in-dalit-history-dr-ambedkar-conferred-with-honorary-degree-of-doctor-of-laws-by-columbia-university/ <https://drambedkarbooks.com/2015/06/05/5th-june-in-dalit-history-dr-ambedkar-conferred-with-honorary-degree-of-doctor-of-laws-by-columbia-university/> (accessed on 25.V.2017)
> 
> 
> 
> Which Aśokan edict could Dr. Ambedkar have had in mind while claiming that Aśoka "removed the idols of such deities"?
> 
> 
> 
> Regards, 
> 
> 
> 
> Artur Karp (ret.)
> 
> Katedra Azji Południowej
> 
> Instytut Orientalistyczny
> 
> Uniwersytet Warszawski
> 
> Polska
> 
> 
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