Asoka Muarya- The Great Doctrine of Tolerance

Among all of the historical kings and princes none quite compare with Asoka, who Wm. Page while in India said, "is a light as great to east as St. Paul ever was to the west." This quote does not do justice to Asoka's magnificent achievement as one of the very first people to record the edicts of religious, political and social freedom, Asoka's largely benign Monarchy became a place for Buddhist pilgrimage to this very day and laid the groundwork for much of what we think of as modern India.

His texts are here: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/ashoka.html

But his religious toleration was well known from rock edict number twelve, where he explains, "to do honor to your own religion it is important for a man and a king to do honor to the religions of others, by doing so one brings not only honor to their faith, but great honor to ones own faith." (my translation) and while his unique perspective of management in the Buddhist kingdom was necessarily tempered by the political reality of violence, he was the first monarch to propose complete and total religious freedom.

The most pertinent quotes from Asoka on toleration have been complied by a website called humanistic texts: http://www.humanistictexts.org/asoka.htm#_Toc492448770

All of which are a welcome relief from so much anti-humanistic belief.

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