Between a rock and a hard place

Fri, May 9 01:05 AM

With bad governance and civic distress making us distraught and thoughts on Buddha Purnima (May 19) arriving already for Inner Voice, do let us recall Buddha's famous follower, Emperor Ashoka, whose Dharma Chakra pulls our hard-won flag together. Beyond their current exposure, surely selected texts from his rock and pillar edicts put into English and the mother tongues could figure as the first step towards reconstituting Civics and Moral Science in school? They need to be taught with passion and sincerity though, as vital building blocks of Indian personality and citizenhood.

(And let me report to you my dismay at the National Museum, Delhi, whose garden is graced with a reproduction of an Ashokan rock edict. I went there last week to check out an Iranian cultural programme but fled almost at once, unable to bear the stench of unowot in the lobby.

We can't keep that one little place clean, though it's the repository of five millennia of national treasures: shame on the caretakers). The individual morality Ashoka wishes to foster includes respect (susrusa) towards parents, elders, teachers, friends, servants and ascetics.

In tune with Buddha's advice in the Anguttara Nikaya, II: 282, he upholds moderation in spending and moderation in saving as worthwhile (apa vyayata apa bhadata). Treating people properly (samya pratipati), he suggests, is way more important than performing 'auspicious' ceremonies.

Because it helps promote tolerance and mutual respect, he desires that people should be well schooled (bahu sruta) in the good doctrines (kalanagama) of other people's religions. The qualities of heart he upholds in his edicts are deeply spiritual: kindness (daya), self-examination (palikhaya), truthfulness (sache), gratitude (katamnata), purity of heart (bhava shuddhi), enthusiasm (usahena), strong loyalty (dadha bhatita), self-control (sayame) and love of right conduct (dhamma kamata).

For, he says: Dhamma sadhu, kiyam chu dhamme ti?Apasinave, bahu kayane, daya, daane, sache, suchaye. 'Dharma is good, but what constitutes Dharma? (It includes) little evil, much good, kindness, generosity, truthfulness and cleanliness,' and adds wisely, "Dharma regulation is of little effect, while persuasion has much more effect.

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