Mother of Ashoka


The information about mother of Ashoka, the Maurya emperor of ancient India, varies between different sources.

Name

The various Buddhist texts provide different names for Ashoka's mother:
Ashokavadana, which does not mention Ashoka's mother by name, states that she was the daughter of a Brahmin from Champa. According to the Mahavamsa-tika, she belonged to the Moriya Kshatriya clan.
According to the 2nd century historian Appian, Ashoka's grandfather Chandragupta entered into a marital alliance with the Greek ruler Seleucus I Nicator, which has led to speculation that Ashoka's father Bindusara married a Greek princess. However, there is no evidence that Ashoka's mother was Greek, and the idea has been dismissed by most historians.

''Ashokavadana'' legend

The Ashokavadana legend about Ashoka's mother goes like this: She was the daughter of a Brahmin from the Champa city near the Mauryan capital Pataliputra. She was extremely beautiful, and some unnamed fortune-tellers predicted that she would marry a king. They also prophesized that she would bear two sons, one of whom will become a chakravartin king, while the other would be religiously-inclined. Accordingly, her father took her to Pataliputra, and offered him in marriage to king Bindusara.
After some time, she gave birth to a boy. She named the child Ashoka, because she had become "without sorrow" when he was born. Later, she gave birth to a second son. She named the child Vitashoka, because her sorrow had ceased when he was born.

''Mahavamsa-tika'' legend

According to the Mahavamsa-tika, Ashoka's mother - named Dhamma - was a devotee of the Ajivika sect. During her pregnancy, she once said that she wanted to "trample on the moon and the sun to play with the stars and to eat up the forests". Based on an interpretation of this wish, an Ajivika ascetic predicted that her son would conquer and rule over entire India, destroy 96 heretical sects, and promote Buddhism. The ascetic also predicted that the son would kill his brothers for displeasing him.

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