Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/167

 ASOKA FORSWEARS WAR 135 conquest," he declares, is that won by the Law of Piety, and he begs his descendants to rid themselves of the popular notion that conquest by arms is the duty of kings; and, even if they should find themselves engaged in warfare, he reminds them that they might still find pleasure in patience and gentleness, and should regard as the only true conquest that which is effected through the Law of Piety. Asoka from this time forth made it the business of his life to employ his unlimited autocratic power over a vast empire in the teaching, propagation, and enforce- ment of the ethical system which he called the Law of Piety (dhamma) and had learned chiefly from his Buddhist instructors. In the sixteenth and seventeenth years of his reign, he definitely decided upon his line of action, and pro- claimed the principles of his government to his people in a series of fourteen edicts engraved upon the rocks, and laid down the general rules which must guide the conduct of the lieges. These extraordinary documents were followed by others specially concerning the con- quered province of Kalinga, the purport of which has been referred to above. In the year 249 B. c., when he had occupied the throne for twenty-three years, Asoka made a solemn pilgrimage to the most sacred spots in the Buddhist Holy Land. Starting from Pataliputra, the capital, he advanced northwards along the royal road, the course of which is marked by five great monolithic pillars, through the districts now known as Muzaffarpur and Champaran,