Ashoka Maurya, who ruled the Mauryan Empire from approximately 268 to 232 BCE, is the single most consequential figure in the spread of Buddhism beyond the lifetime of its founder. His empire, which extended from Afghanistan to Bengal and from the Himalayan foothills to the Deccan, gave him the resources and reach to sponsor Buddhist institutions, build monuments at sacred sites, and send missions to the courts of kingdoms as far away as Egypt, Macedonia, and Sri Lanka.
Ashoka’s conversion to Buddhism followed, according to his own account inscribed on rocks and pillars across his empire, a period of profound remorse after the Kalinga war of approximately 261 BCE, in which his forces killed or displaced hundreds of thousands of people. He describes the conquest as a source of deep grief, and records his subsequent commitment to what he calls Dhamma — a term he uses in a broad moral sense rather than specifically Buddhist, but which was clearly informed by Buddhist ethics.
The most tangible legacy of Ashoka is the corpus of inscriptions he had carved on rocks and polished sandstone pillars across his empire. These are the earliest substantial examples of writing in South Asia and provide the primary historical evidence for Ashoka’s reign, his religious orientation, and his policies. They were composed in the Brahmi script — a writing system that became the ancestor of virtually all scripts used in South and Southeast Asia.
The pillars Ashoka erected at Buddhist sites — including those at Lumbini, Sarnath, Sravasti, and elsewhere — served as markers of pilgrimage, identifying places the emperor had visited and specifying their significance. The pillar at Lumbini, still standing, carries the inscription that remains the most direct historical evidence for the site of Buddha’s birth. The Lion Capital from the Sarnath pillar, now the national emblem of India, was installed by Ashoka above his pillar at the site of the first sermon.
Ashoka’s rock edicts record that he sent “ambassadors of the Dhamma” to the courts of Hellenistic rulers in the Mediterranean world and to kingdoms throughout Asia. The most consequential of these missions, in terms of long-term historical impact, was that to Sri Lanka, led by his son Mahinda. The establishment of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, under Mahinda’s guidance, created the tradition that would preserve the Pali Canon and develop into the Theravada school that remains dominant across much of Southeast Asia.