Ashoka Vs Bhagavad Gita

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Religion intertwines itself in everyday life through simple ways such as saying grace before dinner to complex ways such as influencing political outcomes or determining how to rule a region. In this case, two ancient texts will be compared and contrasted on their political ideology. The Edicts of Ashoka features how politics changed by the way resistance by somewhat maintaining the status quo but changing the political order of India. In contrast, the Bhagavad Gita text features readings that strongly encouraged revolution. Both texts feature political ideologies, which had shaped their region.
To begin, Ashoka brought about the ideology of Buddhism to India when he became emperor 268 BCE. To spread the word of Ashoka’s rule as well as his belief in Buddhism, Ashoka erected rocks and pillars throughout India to maintain his power in the region that are now known as the Edicts of Ashoka. These pillars and rocks formed the laws, respect, kindness, and good deeds, which the public should abide by. In the countryside, people may have not known …show more content…

The people were bound to a duty known as “Dharma”. Before Ashoka, dharma was the notion that a person should live the best they could within their caste in order to be reborn into a better caste in the next life. The caste system put Brahims at the top of the system and would have them control the government and economy. Once Ashoka began to rule, he kept the term Dharma in order to maintain the status quo, but he changed the meaning of the term in order to fit Buddhist ideology. The term was meant to convince the public to be good people and the term destroyed the caste system, bringing everyone to the same level, which had upset the Brahmins (Dhammika). Due to the emperor’s defiance of the previous political atmosphere, his reign was seen as resistance of the former

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