Ashoka The Ungreat Mukhopadhyay Subhodeep Mukhopadhyay Subhodeep by Mukhopadhyay, Subhodeep [mukhopadhyay, Subhodeep] instant download after payment.

Ashoka Maurya. A great king. Master strategist. A legend. The inheritor
of the greatest kingdom in Indian-subcontinent. One war, the bloody
Kalinga War, however changes him forever. He makes a clean break with
the past. Ashoka gives up Hinduism. He gives up war. He embraces
Buddhism. He becomes a humanist. A messenger of peace and religious
tolerance. This is what we are taught in schools and colleges. But how
much of this is really true? We worship Rama. We venerate Krishna. Our
country is named after King Bharat. We recall Mandhatri when we talk of
the old. We talk of Yudhistira's truthfulness. Bhima's strength.
Arjuna's valor. Vikramaditya, Chandragupta, Raja Bhoja, Prithviraj
Chauhan, Shivaji, Maharana Pratap, Guru Gobind Singh. They are our
heroes. They are a part of our daily lives. Ashoka is not. We never talk
about Ashoka conversationally. Our ancestors never talked about Ashoka.
Ashoka was forgotten and unknown in India till the 19th century when
the British popularized him. Later Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, eminent
historians of Delhi, Shah Rukh Khan of Bollywood and others made him
even more popular.Subhodeep Mukhopadhyay delves into this
Ashoka-industry and its massive propaganda. He undertakes a critical,
unbiased and apolitical re-reading of Ashokan rock edicts, Buddhist
sources like Ashokavadana and Mahavamsa and findings from latest
cutting-edge research in Ashoka and Buddhist studies. He presents a
radically different picture by joining the dots and taking all the
available evidence to its logical conclusion. It becomes apparent that
far from being an epitome of rationality and secularism, Ashoka was a
ruthless tyrant and a religious fanatic, and much of what we know about
him are mere fabrications.This book is about the life and times of
Ashoka the Ungreat.