Reading Ashoka Historically and Through Legends
Ranabir Chakravarti
ASHOKA AND THE MAURYA DYNASTY: THE HISTORY AND LEGACY OF ANCIENT INDIA’S GREATEST EMPIRE By Colleen Taylor Sen Speaking Tiger Books, 2022, 261 pp., INR 699.00
December 2023, volume 47, No 12

Colleen Taylor Sen, a culinary and food historian of South Asia—as the Foreword informs—picked up this study of Ashoka, the greatest and third ruler (c. 272/268-233 BCE) of the mighty Maurya dynasty (c. 325/321-185 BCE), on account of her interest in Ashoka’s renowned policy of curbing the killing of living beings, nonviolence,

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