Your editorial on religious freedom and the massacre in Sri Lanka (23 April) suggests: “The ideal of religious tolerance is relatively new and not widely accepted even as an ideal outside the west.” Yet the ideal of religious tolerance is not something that can only be promoted by appeal to recent religious and intellectual history in the west. One of the earliest examples of a state attempting to promote the ideal of religious tolerance comes from ancient India. In the middle of the third century BCE, Ashoka, ruler of what at that time was one of the largest empires in the world, had the following inscribed at various sites across his kingdom:
“The king … honours all religious sects … with gifts and with honours of various kinds. But he does not value gifts or honour as much as the promotion of the essentials of all religious sects. The root of this is guarding one’s speech so that neither praising one’s own sect nor blaming others’ sects should occur on improper occasions; and it should be moderate on every occasion. And others’ sects should be honoured on every occasion. Acting thus, one both promotes one’s own sect and benefits others’ sects. Acting otherwise, one both harms one’s own sect and wrongs others’ sects. For whoever praises their own sect or blames another’s sect out of devotion to their own sect with a view to showing it in a good light, instead severely damages their own sect. Coming together is good, so that people should both hear and appreciate each other’s teaching.” (Major Rock Edict 12)
We could learn something from ancient India too, it seems.
Rupert Gethin
Professor of Buddhist studies, University of Bristol
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