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The rock-and-pillar edicts were tools of propaganda, and we might question whether Asoka was quite as saintly as he wished history to believe. That he was enlightened and, by the standards of the time, compassionate cannot be doubted, however. He claimed that his task was to ‘promote the welfare of the whole world’, and so he did. He abolished the death penalty, established a sprawling network of wells and rest houses for travellers, and planted shady trees along trade routes. As for ambassadors, they were to continue in their usual tasks – forging alliances and seeking tribute – but they were also to carry medicinal herbs to foreign lands.
The defining diplomatic policy of Asoka’s reign had little to do with military aggrandizement or economic progress; it consisted rather of missionary-envoys being sent to Syria, Egypt, Macedonia and Nepal to preach the tenets of Buddhism. And as we will see in the missions of men like John of Plano Carpini in the thirteenth century, the tradition of the monkish ambassador had a vibrant future ahead of it. When a new king, Tissa, came to the throne of Sri Lanka, he sent envoys to Asoka informing the emperor of his accession. Asoka responded by despatching his son, Mahinda, as an ‘ambassador of righteousness’, charged with winning the new king for the Buddhist faith. He succeeded, and King Tissa was soon erecting a Buddhist reliquary in one of the royal gardens.
Tissa’s sister was an even more impassioned acolyte and announced that she desired to become a Buddhist nun. Lacking the authority to invest her in holy orders, Mahinda sent for his own sister Sanghamitta, who was already a nun. She arrived in Sri Lanka with the requisite paraphernalia and a golden vase containing a branch of the Bodhi tree, under which the Buddha had meditated for seven years before receiving enlightenment. The sapling was planted on a terrace in the royal gardens and to this day remains an object of veneration.
If this was one way to encounter the rest of the world, Asoka’s grandfather had espoused quite another. Chandragupta (reigned 321–298 BC), the founder of the Mauryan dynasty, was a man of humble origins: by some accounts, the son of a peacock farmer. One, presumably apocryphal, story perfectly encapsulates his fearful reputation. Ever wary of assassination attempts, Chandragupta was in the habit of taking a daily draught of poison with his meals, hoping to immunize himself against its effects. One day, when his pregnant wife accidentally imbibed some of the poison, the emperor immediately chopped off her head (hoping to stop the toxins progressing any further), ripped the unborn child from her belly and placed the embryo in the womb of a goat.4
Such ruthless efficiency pervaded Chandragupta’s entire political career. It was captured for posterity by one of his most trusted ministers, named Kautilya, who wrote an intricate treatise on how a wise king ought to govern. Kautilya’s Arthasastra was not simply an abstract meditation on devious statecraft, but an account of actual political practice. It is one of the finest works of political philosophy ever written, though it remains undervalued in the West. Its radical meditations on the nature and exercise of political power led the sociologist Max Weber to conclude that, by comparison, ‘Machiavelli’s The Prince is harmless.’5 It made a refreshingly candid contribution to an enduring debate, and one that any history of the ambassadors is obliged to fathom. What was diplomacy for? By what rules should it be governed? Which is more important when conducting foreign affairs: moral rectitude or naked self-interest, courtesy or cunning, the urbanity of an envoy or the subtle skills of an assassin? Realism or idealism?
The great Roman orator Cicero (106–43 BC) offered one prescription: ‘There will not be different laws at Rome and at Athens, or different laws now and in the future, but one eternal and unchangeable law will be valid for all nations and for all times, and there will be one master and one ruler, that is, God, over all, for He is the author of this law, its promulgator, and its enforcing judge.’6 When expounding the rules and rubrics of diplomacy, the idealist insists, one must abide by the dictates of a universal moral order. This might be Cicero’s God, Asoka’s dhamma, or even the modern notion of a binding Law of Nations, but in all cases ethical imperatives govern the parleys between societies. Of course, rulers invariably engage in diplomacy to further their own best interests, but there is still a right way and a wrong way to conduct foreign affairs. Justice and fair play are not only worth pursuing in and of themselves; they also foster dynamic, respectful relationships.
Realists regard this as naïve, and look instead to self-interest and contingency. Higher justice is a chimera, they suggest, and rather than genuflecting to a benign Law of Nations, political leaders ought to abide by the grittier realities of the Law of Nature. The strong will always dominate the weak, the pursuit of power and influence is both noble and necessary, and if you do not strive to rule over others, then, in time, others will assuredly strive to rule over you.
Classical Athens, to look backwards for a moment, is often credited with an uncompromisingly realist outlook. In 416 BC, during the Peloponnesian War, the city launched an expedition against the island of Melos, a Spartan colony that stubbornly refused to ally itself with the Athenian Empire. Envoys were sent to treat with the island’s governors. ‘On our side,’ the Athenians began, ‘we will not use fine phrases,’ nor claim that Athens deserves its empire because of past services to the Greek world. When reaching their decision, the Melians should eschew moralizing and ‘try to get what it is possible for you to get…When matters are discussed by practical people,’ the just outcome is always determined by the fact that ‘the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept’.
In the present instance, ‘we rule the sea and you are islanders, and weaker islanders than the rest.’ Any appeal to ‘such a thing as fair play and just dealing’ was given short shrift. The ‘path of justice and honour’ led to danger the path of self-interest to safety. ‘There is nothing disgraceful in giving way to the greatest city in Hellas when she is offering you such reasonable terms – alliance on a tribute-paying basis and liberty to enjoy your own property.’ Athens was simply behaving as a great power ought to: expanding its influence so that it might flourish.
The Melians were unconvinced. ‘Our decision, Athenians, is just the same as it was at first. We are not prepared to give up in a short moment the liberty which our city has enjoyed from its foundation for seven hundred years. We put our trust in the fortune that the gods will send…and in the help of men – that is, of the Spartans.’ That trust was misplaced and, after a period of siege, ‘the Melians surrendered unconditionally to the Athenians, who put to death all the men of military age, and sold the women and children as slaves.’7
This account of the so-called Melian dialogue comes from the histories of Thucydides (460–400 BC), who is often claimed as a founding father of realist theorizing. Undoubtedly, he offers a skewed account of Greek statecraft. He had a particular view of the nature of Greek political life, a precise (and, to some tastes, compelling) theory about how the affairs of men were governed, and he shaped his histories accordingly. But if he exaggerated, Thucydides, as great an historian as the world would ever know, was surely correct in diagnosing naked self-interest as one of the engines of Greek politics. However, the tradition he inaugurated (which would be carried forward by philosophers such as Niccolò‘ Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes) had a less familiar, but no less vibrant, counterpart in the East, which brings us back to Kautilya’s Arthasastra.
ii. The Arthasastra
According to Kautilya’s theory, in the Mauryan political world everything turned on the character of the king. If he ‘is energetic, his subjects will be equally energetic. If he is reckless, they will be reckless likewise.’ Kautilya advised any reputable monarch to divide his day into segments of one and a half hours. His night-time
