An illuminating biography reconstructing the life and legacy of a unique king in world history and the most famous emperor in South Asian history “Mr. Olivelle has produced an outstanding monument of scholarship and sound judgment.”—Maxwell Carter, Wall Street Journal A New Yorker “Best Book of 2024” Selection There are few historical figures more integral to South Asian history than Emperor Ashoka, a third-century BCE king who ruled over a larger area of the Indian subcontinent than anyone else before British colonial rule. Ashoka sought not only to rule his territory but also to give it a unity of purpose and aspiration, to unify the people of his vastly heterogeneous empire not by a cult of personality but by the cult of an idea—“dharma”—which served as the linchpin of a new moral order. He aspired to forge a new moral philosophy that would be internalized not only by the people of his empire but also by rulers and subjects of other countries, and would form the foundation
