Author

Charles Allen

16 key ideas across 2 books, each explained in our own words.

Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor

IDEA 1
India forgot its greatest emperor
Allen explains that by the nineteenth century, Ashoka had largely disappeared from Indian memory. His name survived mainly in Buddhist texts from Sri Lanka and elsewhere, while his inscriptions stood unread across the land.
IDEA 2
Inscriptions were a puzzle
Mysterious inscriptions on rocks and pillars had been noticed for centuries, but no one could read their script. Allen describes how scholars of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta set out to crack the code.
IDEA 3
Prinsep cracked the Brahmi script
Allen tells how James Prinsep, working in the 1830s, deciphered the ancient Brahmi script, partly by comparing short donor inscriptions at Sanchi. This breakthrough allowed the edicts to be read for the first time in many centuries.

IDEA 1
Buddhism had faded from India
Allen explains that by the eighteenth century, Buddhism had almost vanished from the land of its birth. Many Europeans in India did not even know the Buddha had been Indian, and his sites lay forgotten or in ruins.
IDEA 2
Amateur scholars explored the past
Allen describes the British officials, soldiers and amateurs who studied India's ancient history, often through the Asiatic Society of Bengal. Their curiosity led them to texts, coins and ruins that hinted at a lost Buddhist past.
IDEA 3
Reading old scripts revealed history
The decipherment of the Brahmi script in the 1830s unlocked ancient inscriptions. Allen shows how this let scholars read records of Buddhist rulers and donors and begin to rebuild a forgotten history.

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