Ashoka, Samprati and Mauryan Jainism

The Mauryan empire, which dominated the Indian subcontinent in the third century BCE, was a period of intense religious patronage in which the shramana traditions flourished alongside older Brahmanical currents. The most famous Mauryan emperor, Ashoka, is celebrated above all for his embrace of Buddhism, yet his edicts and his dynasty also intersected with Jainism in significant ways.

Ashoka's rock and pillar edicts, inscribed across his empire from the mid-third century BCE, promoted a policy of dhamma emphasising non-violence, respect for all living beings and toleration among religious communities. Several edicts explicitly mention the Nirgranthas, the term used in ancient sources for Jain ascetics, alongside Buddhists, Brahmins and Ajivikas, instructing his officials to show them honour and care. This is among the earliest datable external references to the Jain community and confirms its established presence and recognition within the Mauryan world.

There is also a tradition, recorded in later Buddhist sources, of an incident in which Ashoka acted harshly against Jains following a report of an image deemed insulting to the Buddha, an account historians treat with scepticism given its polemical origin. Whatever its basis, Ashoka's general policy was one of protection and even-handed patronage rather than persecution, and the Jain community continued to thrive under Mauryan rule.

It is Ashoka's grandson, Samprati, who occupies the central place in Jain memory of the dynasty. Jain tradition celebrates Samprati as one of the greatest royal patrons of the faith, sometimes compared to Ashoka's role in Buddhism. According to these accounts, Samprati was converted and guided by the teacher Suhastin (Arya Suhasti) and became a devoted supporter of the Jain order. He is credited with building thousands of Jain temples and shrines, commissioning countless images, and endowing the monastic community generously across his territories.

Samprati is further remembered for sponsoring the spread of Jainism beyond its established heartlands, said to have sent Jain teachers into regions such as the western and southern parts of the subcontinent and even to have facilitated missionary activity in frontier areas. Many old Jain temples and images across western India were traditionally attributed to his patronage, and his name became a byword for royal generosity toward the faith.

Historians recognise Samprati as a genuine historical figure who ruled a portion of the Mauryan territory in the period following Ashoka, though the empire was by then fragmenting. The scale of temple-building attributed to him is likely exaggerated by devotional tradition, and the numerous images ascribed to his era cannot all be authenticated. Nonetheless, the strength and persistence of the Samprati tradition reflects a real memory of significant Jain flourishing under late Mauryan patronage.

Taken together, the Mauryan episode illustrates how the great shramana faiths competed for and benefited from royal favour in the formative centuries after their founders. Jainism, like Buddhism, secured imperial recognition and support, first through the tolerant policies of Ashoka and then, in tradition, through the wholehearted devotion of Samprati, laying institutional foundations that would help carry the faith through the turbulent centuries after the Mauryan collapse.