ASOKA CHAKRA
BY C. JINARAJADASA
India became a free
Nation on August 15, 1947. What has she made so far of her freedom? Let us draw
the veil over the events in Calcutta and Punjab which followed swiftly on
freedom, and come to this year 1950. On February 22nd last, the Governor of West
Bengal, Dr. K. N. Katju, said in a public address: “The profit-seeking motive
has been the predominant factor in business, especially after the two world
wars, which has not only brought about the lowering of prices on the stock
exchanges, but also a lowering of moral values.” Three weeks later, at the
inauguration of the Asoka Chakra Movement in Bombay, Mr. Justice H. N. Bhagwati
said “that the end of war saw India in a sad plight. Complete demoralisation
had set in, and we do not know what morality is and what religion is. The bulk
of the people “has no sense of moral values.”
It is in the face of this
moral crisis in the nation that some of us Theosophists have determined to
create an All-India non-political movement to be called Asoka Chakra Movement.
Why Asoka and why Chakra? The Chakra with twenty-four spokes which is on the flag
of India is taken from the Chakra, the symbol of Dharma or Moral Law, carved on
the bell-capital of the Asoka pillar at Sarnath. Asoka, the grandson of
Chandragupta, ruled between 264 B. C. and 227 B. C. an empire that extended
from Afghanistan to Mysore and to ninety miles north of Madras, from Girnar in
Kathiawar to West Bengal.
But Asoka was not a
ruler of the ordinary type. After being converted to Buddhism, he renounced all
idea of further expansion of his empire by military conquest, and determined
upon Dharma-Vijaya, a conquest by Morality. He sent out “edicts” to be engraved
on rocks and pillars, enjoining his subjects, whom he says he considers “as
myself”, to live in the ways of Dharma. Dharma was a teaching common to Hinduism,
Buddhism and Jainism. As early as the days of Brihad Aranyaka Upanishad we have
this striking conception of Dharma: “Dharma is the king of kings (kshatrasya
Kshatra), there being nothing mightier than it. It is by the power of Dharma
that the weaker person controls the stronger as it were by the might of a
ruler. Dharma is Satya. Therefore, when one affirms the Satya, he affirms the
Dharma, or when one affirms the Dharma, he affirms the Satya. Thus verily it
becomes an affirmation of both.”
Four types of Vijaya
success or conquest, are described by the old writers: 1. Sayaka-vijaya,
success by the sword; 2. Lobha-vijaya, success by greed; 3 Asura-vijaya,
success by violence; 4. Dharma-vijaya, success by right conduct or morality.
Asura-vijaya” success by violence, is the creed of the Communists, who descend
on defenceless villagers, rob them and slay them, and remove plates from
railway tracks, causing fearful accidents. Lobha-vijaya, success by greed, is
the creed of the black-marketers, and equally of “big business” leaders who in
various ways juggle with the stocks of commodities, exploit mill-hands and
similar types of workers, and fleece the millions, and are profiteers on a
grand scale. Happily there are no more military conquerors in India, with their
gospel of Sayaka-vijaya, success by conquest. But how many among the 300
millions in India are pledged to Dharma-vijaya, success by morality only?
It is to make a mass
movement among the millions, to rouse them to a conscious realization of what
they inwardly know and believe in, Dharma, that the Asoka Chakra Movement was
started on the first of March in at least a hundred cities and towns by some
Theosophists, who have eagerly welcomed others to share in a common work, which
is one way of putting into practice the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi. The objects
of the Movement are: 1. To bring together all citizens of India who are willing
to subordinate their personal, party or sectarian interests to the welfare of
their country. 2. To inculcate among the people the principles of right citizenship,
and to invite their attention to the need of making the moral and spiritual ideals,
for which this country has stood for ages, the basis of India’s national
reconstruction. 3. To raise a band of workers who, by example and precept, will
show forth these ideals in their life and action,
But in order not to be
vague but to know definitely what were the ideals which the Emperor Asoka
inscribed on rocks and pillars, a book containing his edicts has been published
by the well-known institution, the Adyar Library, whose Director is Dr. G.
Srinivasamurti. Each edict is given in its original Magadhi in Devanagari script
and in a transliteration in Roman script as well; on the page opposite to the
edict appears the modernised Sanskrit rendering, and a translation of the edict
in English. On receiving a copy of the book, Sri C. Rajagopalachari wrote: “It
is a splendid production. We cannot do better than remind people about Ashoka.”
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru wrote: “I am very grateful to you for sending me the Edicts of Asoka. It is a fascinating book
and the way it has been produced adds to its utility and attraction.”
What does Asoka mean by
Dharma-Vijaya? Friendship among all the communities and classes, duties to
elders, kindliness to animals, innocent festivities, no hunting of animals, in
all matters to remember that every fiction in “this world”, iha-loka, is linked to a result in “the outer
world”, para-loka, after death. These
are the ideals Asoka places before his people. On his viceroys–Mahamatras–he enjoins the duty of
erecting rest-houses for travellers, planting of trees, digging wells, and
creating dispensaries with herbal remedies not only for man but also for beast.
The edicts are fascinating to read, revealing a ruler who regarded himself a
true father of his people, who made Dharma-Vijaya his creed.
It is with this creed
alone that India can be lifted up out of the mud into which she has been thrust
by selfish politicians, corrupt officials and greedy middlemen and traders.
Surely here religion should help us? But who believes in real religion today,
the religion of duty, self-sacrifice, and working “with no thought of reward”,
as the Bhagavad Gita teaches? It is to supply the need of true religion, a true
and effective Dharma-Vijaya, that the Asoka Chakra Movement has been created. A
friend from Gujerat, a Congressman, writes to me: “There is real chaos. Old
Congressmen say, Whither? And new ones like me ponder, Where to begin?”
There is only one new
beginning possible; it is Dharma-Vijaya.