भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

of the Buddhistic ‘total Ahimsa’, it was also declared unlawful to hunt wild beasts like lions and tigers, which very often broke upon human habitations and caused great distress by carrying away men and animals. If practised sincerely and without making any exceptions, these principles prove utterly harmful to mankind. While he was, thus, tyrannically overriding the religious practices of the Brahmin-Kshatriya and Vedic people, Ashoka went on erecting great pillars and inscribed thereon his famous edicts, enjoining on his subjects to be tolerant to all religionists, to give respect to the Shramanas (ascetics) and Brahmins alike. It is really strange that an emperor, calm, cool, composed and considerate like Ashoka, should not be able to realize the inconsistency between his precept and practice. 154. Nearly fifty years before Ashoka, Chanakya had already visualized the inevitable, horriblle effect of some of the teachings of the Buddhist cult on the national strength and the foundation of the society as a whole. As such in his famous political treatise, “Arthashastra”, on which was erected the whole edifice of the Maurya empire, he had laid down certain restrictions that were essential from the national point of view on those, who thought of leaving the wordly life and become ‘bhikksu’. For instance, one of the Chanakyan rules forbade a minor girl to enter the Buddha ‘Sangham’ without the express permission of her parents and the government. Another of his rules prohibited every man from becoming a ‘bhikksu’, unless and until he had provided amply for the dependants, his wife and children. But during the reign of Ashoka and later also, these restrictions disappeared, and every man or woman, young or old, became absolutely free to renounce the worldly ways to enter the Buddhistic Sanghas. Thousands of these ‘bhikksus’ in the ‘Sanghas’ were allowed free food, clothing, beddings and abodes as charities, at the cost of the state. Ashoka spent crores of rupees from the imperial treasury on building gigantic viharas and on the maintenance of millions of such bhikksus living in them. The major part of the revenue collection of the imperial treasury was made from the estates of the Vedic Hindus, yet it was spent on the universal propaganda of the Buddhistic sect, which antagonised them. This squandering away of their wealth for the growth of their antagonists, naturally bred great discontent among the Vedic populace. A blow to the Imperial Might!