Asandhimitra

Asandhimitra

Asandhimitra

Queen and chief consort of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka

Asandhamitra (304 BCE - 240 BCE) was an empress and 1st chief consort of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka The Great. She was Ashoka's second wife and first empress consort[1][2]

Quick Facts Wife of Ashoka, Born ...

Given the title "agramahisi", or "Chief Empress",[3] Asandhimitra was likely from a royal family.[2] She did not have any children.[2] After her death, Tishyarakshita became the first chief empress of Ashoka.[1]

Life

According to Maha Bodhi Society, she was married to Ashoka during c. 270-240 BC.[3] She was a trusted, faithful, and favourite wife of Ashoka. She is often referred to as his "beloved" or his "dear" consort and is said to have been a trusted adviser of the emperor.[3][2] At her death in c. 240 BC,[3] Ashoka was deeply grieved.[2]

Karmic legends

The Mahavamsa tells a legend of how she became empress, stating that she became Ashoka's empress because in a previous life, she had given directions to a pratyekabuddha who was looking for a honey merchant. The story says that after the merchant filled his bowl completely with honey, the pratyekabuddha made a vow to become the lord of Jambudvipa. After hearing this, she herself wished they would be reborn as King and Queen, leading them to be reborn as Ashoka and Asandhimitra.[4]

In the Extended Mahavamsa, a story is additionally told that in a separate past life, Asandhimitra gave a pratyekabuddha a piece of cloth, which is thought to have given her the status of Queen, karmically independent of Asoka.[4]

In the Dasavatthuppakarana, it combines both stories into one, telling the story of the pratyekabuddha and the honey merchant and adding that Asandhimitra's past self gifted the same pratyekabuddha with a piece of cloth.[4]

References

  1. [1]
    Barua, Beni Madhab; Topa, Ishwar Nath (1968). Asoka and his inscriptions. Vol. 1. New Age Publishers. p. 53.
  2. [2]
    Gupta, Subhadra Sen (8 September 2009). Ashoka: The Great and Compassionate King. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-81-8475-807-8. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
  3. [3]
    The Maha Bodhi: Volume 104. University of Michigan. 1996. pp. 25–26.
  4. [4]
    Holt, John Clifford; Kinnard, Jacob N.; Walters, Kinnard, eds. (2003). Constituting Communities: Theravada Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia. SUNY Press. pp. 43–51. ISBN 978-0-7914-8705-1. Retrieved 25 September 2020.
Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Asandhimitra, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.