Introduction
Ashoka was the third Maurya emperor and ruler of the empire at its greatest territorial extent, uniquely well-documented among ancient Indian rulers through his own surviving rock and pillar edicts inscribed across his domains.
Family
- Father: Bindusara
- Mother: Subhadrangi
- Spouse: Devi (queen) (married)
- Spouse: Kaurwaki (married)
- Spouse: Tishyaraksha (married)
- Children: Mahendra, Sanghamitra, Tivara, Kunala, Dasharatha Maurya
Kalinga and a Turn Toward Dhamma
Ashoka's edicts describe his profound remorse after the enormous bloodshed of the Kalinga War, a conquest he himself describes in unusually candid terms as a source of deep regret rather than pride. In its aftermath, he embraced and actively promoted Buddhism (dhamma) across his empire, framing it in his edicts less as a specific sectarian program than a broader ethic of non-violence, tolerance, and welfare for his subjects. He sent missions to spread this ethic and, according to later tradition, specifically Buddhism itself, including missions led by his own children Mahendra and Sanghamitra to Sri Lanka — a mission credited in Sri Lankan chronicle tradition with establishing Buddhism there as a lasting institution.
This article records the Maurya Empire (c. 4th-2nd century BCE) as historical genealogy reconstructed from Ashoka's own rock and pillar edicts, Greek and Latin accounts of contact with the Mauryas, and later Buddhist, Jain and Puranic traditions composed well after the events they describe; where these traditions genuinely disagree, that disagreement is noted rather than resolved into invented certainty.