Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/27

Rh love of that Law, and his inculcation of that Law. Thence arises the remorse of His Sacred Majesty for having conquered the Kalingas, because the conquest of a country previously unconquered involves the slaughter, death, and carrying away captive of the people. That is a matter of profound sorrow and regret to His Sacred Majesty. . . . So that of all the people who were then slain, done to death, or carried away captive in Kalinga, if the hundredth part or the thousandth part were now to suffer the same fate, it would be matter of regret to His Sacred Majesty.'

The royal preacher proceeds to prove in detail the horrors of war, and to draw the lesson that the true conquest is that of piety.

After the triumphant conclusion of the war and the annexation of the kingdom Asoka issued two long special edicts prescribing the principles on which both the settled inhabitants and the wild jungle tribes of the conquered provinces should be treated. These two edicts, in substitution for three documents published in other localities, were issued in Kalinga only, where they are preserved at two sites, now called Jaugada and Dhauli. The conquered territory, no doubt, formed a separate unit of administration, and seems to have been constituted a viceroyalty under a Prince of the royal family stationed at Tosali, a town situated in the Puri District of Orissa, and apparently identical with Dhauli. There is no