Art+of+South+and+Southeast+Asia+Before+1200

According to legend, the ruler Ashoka was stunned by grief and remorse as he looked across the battlefield. In the custom of his dynasty, he had gone to war, expanding his empire until he had conquered many of the peoples of the Indian subcontinent. Now, in 265 BCE, after the final battle in his conquest of the northern states, he was suddenly - unexpectedly - shocked by the horror fo the suffering he had caused. In the traditional account, it is said that only one form on the battlefield moved, the stooped figure of a Buddhist monk slowly making his way through the carnage. Watching this spectral figure, Ashoka abruptly turned the moment of triumph into one of renunciation. Decrying violence and warfare, he vowed to become a chakravartin ("world-conquering ruler"), not thorugh the force of arms but through spreading the teachings of the Buddha and establishing Buddhism a the maor religion of his realm. Although there is no proof that Ashoka himself converted to Buddhism, he erected and dedicated monuments to the Buddha throughout his empire - shrines, monasteries, sculpture, and the columns known as Ashokan Pillars. Withg missionary ardor, he dispatched delegates throughout the Indian subcontinent and to contries as distant as Syria, Egypt, and Greece. In his impassioned propagation of Buddhism, Ashoka stimulated an intensely rich period of art. (Stokstad, 311) Welcome to the Art of South and Southeast Asia before 1200 CE