Nayanjot Lahiri in conversation with musician, TM Krishna during the launch of the Edict Project in September 2022

The Edict Project, seeded by the famous vocalist TM Krishna, in collaboration with Ashoka University, aims at artistic and academic collaborations around the words of the Mauryan Emperor, Ashoka. Four themes have been chosen which range from history and memory to Ashoka’s ideas on governance, ecology, the self, and ego.

We decided quite early in this collaboration to convey a sense of Ashoka, as he himself put out, with all his strengths, his faults, and his fears. Each of the themes can be visualised as a bouquet where Krishna sings edicts around a specific theme, which I choose and which are translated in a contemporary way by Naresh Keerthi (Assistant Professor and Head of Department, Sanskrit Studies). Alongside, the edicts are also reimagined in different art forms including theatre, dance, and choir music. The first edition focused on the themes of history and memory. Kashmir has figured in this theme, and other parts of India will feature in the subsequent segments. This, in fact, is the essence of the Edict Project – collaborations that aim to travel beyond one region and one way of seeing Ashoka.

Emperor Ashoka has fascinated generations of writers and scholars. A large part of this has to do with his presence, through a profusion of words, in public arenas across large parts of India and beyond. The edicts underline that Ashoka was an indefatigable communicator till almost the end of his life, which, seen in the context of public communication in contemporary times, makes him even more distinctive. The subject matter of his epigraphs underlines Ashoka’s keenness to appear as liberal – a flesh and blood emperor. An ancient sovereign who took responsibility for a politically reprehensible action, the carnage at Kalinga, he seems at times less a political figure than a strikingly self-reflective individual. The contrast with the archetype of a self-serving politician is so stark and rare that Ashoka arouses an admiration virtually unseen in Asia until the appearance of Mahatma Gandhi. Like Gandhi, in fact, he belongs to a genre of universal Indians. That is perhaps why his words continue to have contemporary relevance.

One of his most important public messages, encourages a public culture wherein every community honours the other. A slew of substantive injunctions against the killing of animals, birds, and fish constitute another exceptional dimension of the

emperor’s humane provisions. These too are worth remembering at a time when we find ourselves in an environmental crisis of colossal proportions. From the modern ecological perspective, his Fifth Pillar Edict is, without doubt, the most copious royal message anywhere in the ancient world for the protection of living beings in general. He elaborates at length on measures for protecting the habitat of such living creatures and preventing cruelty towards them. “Cocks must not be caponed,” he says, and “husks containing living animals must not be burnt,” nor forests uselessly razed as they destroy living beings. An emperor ordering his people not to kill pregnant and lactating she-goats and sows, and regulating animal castration, needs to say nothing else to appear extraordinary.

Can we also draw a link between how Ashoka’s remembrance has unfolded over time and its reflection in the Edict Project? There were diverse artistic and literary remembrances of the emperor – in sculpture and in paintings, in chronicles, and in epigraphs – all the way from South Asia to Southeast Asia. Equally, a variety of ways of looking at Ashoka and his words is showcased in the Edict Project. What is different and pathbreaking is that, for the first time ever, Emperor Ashoka’s words in prose have been rendered into song by TM Krishna.

Nayanjot Lahiri is professor of history. She has been working towards exploring many obscure facets of Ashoka’s life and works, and has authored two books on the emperor. The Edict Project was launched at the University in September 2022, with an edition based on the theme, Ashoka and memory. Subsequent editions will represent the southern, eastern, and western regions.