BELOVED-OF-THE-GODS.
He was a King like many others in human history,
Groomed to swim to glory in rivers of blood, guts and
gore;
Programmed to carve an empire out of human misery,
And to sculpt his name for posterity out of human
skulls.
But, for the third king of the Mauryas, it was not destined
to be so.
The Kalinga genocide
in 262 B.C made Ashoka see the river of red
And realize with horror,sorrow and remorse,
The grave folly,the wastage and the terrible human
suffering;
The million agonies caused by this mindless slaughter
of war
And the empty victory on the corpse-ridden
battlefield.
And then, through his heart rending anguish,
The Light of Wisdom dawned on him;
And then was born in him the True Emperor,
A King-of-Hearts, a Creature of Compassion,
The maker of Edicts,the pillar of Buddhism,
‘Piyadasi’, the Beloved-of-the-Gods.
Comments
Post a comment