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Reveals how the persona of India's most famous emperor was constantly reinvented in ancient times to suit a variety of social visions, political agendas, and moral purposes.
Blending travelogue, history, and archaeology, Searching for Ashoka unravels the various avatars of India's most famous emperor, revealing how he came to be remembered-and forgotten-in distinctive ways at particular points in time and in specific locations. Through personal journeys that take her across India and to various sites and cities in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand, archaeologist Nayanjot Lahiri explores how Ashoka's visibility from antiquity to the modern era has been accompanied by a reinvention of his persona. Although the historical Ashoka spoke expansively of his ideas of governance and a new kind of morality, his afterlife is a jumble of stories and representations within various Buddhist imaginings. By remembering Ashoka selectively, Lahiri argues, ancient kings and chroniclers created an artifice, constantly appropriating and then remolding history to suit their own social visions, political agendas, and moral purposes.
"Lahiri strikes this reader as a learned, engaging, accessible, and above all wryly humorous travel companion. Throughout these journeys Lahiri reveals her lively personality with generous tributes to helpful colleagues past and present, with frequent apt quotations of Shakespeare, and with razor-sharp critical wit … I am most grateful to Nayanjot Lahiri for penning such an accessible and readable introduction to the complex workings of historical memory and mythmaking." — Ryan Overbey, H-Net Reviews (H-Asia)
"The book is a product of academic labour, imagination and personal musings." — The Book Review
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction: Encountering Ashoka
1. Imaging Ashoka at Sanchi
2. Among Kings at Kanaganahalli
3. On the Edge of a Junagadh Lake
4. Looking Back at Barabar
5. Searching Siblings in Sri Lanka
6. Among Relics and Shrines in Myanmar
7. Ashokas in Thailand
8. Fabricating Remembrance
Bibliography
Index