About this stamp
Ashoka the Great
India Post issued this ₹5 stamp on 24 August 2015 on Samrat Ashoka (304–232 BCE), the third ruler of the Maurya empire, grandson of Chandragupta and son of Bindusara. His empire stretched from present-day Afghanistan to Bengal and south to Mysore. The brochure quotes H. G. Wells: amid the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history, “the name of Asoka shines, and shines almost alone, a star.”
After Kalinga
Ashoka is believed at first to have used military force to expand his empire. His war against Kalinga, in present-day Odisha, around 261 BCE, was one of the bloodiest of its time. Seeing the destruction it caused, he issued an edict regretting the suffering, renounced war and turned to spreading dhamma, a code of ethical conduct: respect for elders, kindness to servants, not harming people or animals, and respect for other faiths. He built roads, wells and rest houses, arranged medical care for people and animals, and appointed dhamma-mahamattas to carry the message. His edicts, most in the Brahmi script, are found in more than thirty places in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and his polished stone pillars, some forty to fifty feet high, are masterpieces of Indian art.
The stamp was designed by Kamleshwar Singh; Security Printing Press, Hyderabad printed 0.5 million.
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