Kalinga War History: Ashoka’s Turning Point Explained

In the eighth year after he was crowned, Ashoka sent the Mauryan army into Kalinga, the coastal kingdom that roughly matches today’s Odisha. He won. Then he did something no other Indian king is known to have done: he had his regret for the war carved into stone across his empire. That inscription, Rock Edict XIII, is where any account of Kalinga War history has to begin, because almost everything we know about the war comes from the man who started it.

Quick Facts

When was the Kalinga War fought?

The Kalinga War was fought in 261 BCE. Ashoka became emperor around 268 BCE, and his own edict says Kalinga was conquered eight years after his consecration, which is how historians arrive at the date. Ancient Indian dates are rarely exact, so you will see a year or two either side in some books.

What no source tells us is how long the campaign lasted, who commanded the Kalingan forces, or how the battles were fought. Ashoka recorded the result and the human cost, not the tactics. Any account that describes charging elephants and clashing armies in detail is filling in gaps with imagination.

Where was Kalinga?

Ancient Kalinga corresponds roughly to the modern state of Odisha, along with parts of northern Andhra Pradesh and southern Chhattisgarh. It held the eastern coast between the Mahanadi and the Godavari, with fertile river deltas and ports that traded across the Bay of Bengal.

The main battlefield is traditionally placed at the Dhauli hills on the banks of the Daya river, about 8 kilometres from present-day Bhubaneswar. A local tradition says the Daya ran red with blood after the fighting. That story cannot be checked, but the choice of Dhauli for one of Ashoka’s inscriptions shows the place mattered to him.

The Mauryan Empire before Kalinga

Chandragupta Maurya founded the dynasty in 322 BCE, and by the time his grandson Ashoka took the throne, the Mauryas ruled the largest empire the subcontinent had yet seen. It stretched from Afghanistan in the west to Bengal in the east and deep into the Deccan. Kalinga was the one large independent kingdom left on its eastern flank.

Buddhist legends call the young king Chandashoka, “Ashoka the Fierce”, and describe him as cruel before his conversion and Dharmashoka, “Ashoka the Righteous”, after it. Historians treat these stories with care, since the texts were written by Buddhist monks centuries later and had good reason to make the change look as dramatic as possible. For the full life of Ashoka the Great and the wider world of ancient India, see our other posts.

Why did Ashoka invade Kalinga?

Ashoka never explains why he went to war, so the reasons below are historians’ reconstructions rather than recorded motives. The most common ones are strategic and economic. Kalinga sat on the land route from the Ganga valley to the south, and its ports gave access to sea trade with Southeast Asia.

There was also the matter of territory and prestige. An independent Kalinga was a gap in an otherwise continuous empire, and a new emperor had reasons to prove himself a conqueror equal to his grandfather. Some historians add that Kalinga may once have been part of the Nanda kingdom that the Mauryas replaced, since a later inscription from Odisha mentions a Nanda king, but this link is debated.

Kalinga War history in Ashoka’s own words

Rock Edict XIII gives the numbers. About 150,000 people were deported from Kalinga, about 100,000 were killed, and many times that number died afterwards. Even allowing for the rounding typical of ancient records, this was a war on a huge scale for its time.

The edict then does something unusual for a royal inscription. Ashoka says he feels deep remorse for the conquest, and that the killing, death and deportation of people weigh heavily on him. He is also troubled that ordinary people suffered, including brahmins, shramanas (wandering ascetics) and householders who had done nothing wrong, along with their friends and relatives. He adds that even a hundredth or a thousandth part of that suffering would now grieve him.

From there the edict turns to policy. Ashoka declares that the best conquest is conquest by dhamma, and names Greek kings as far away as Syria and Egypt whose lands his message has reached. He does not sound like a pacifist, though. In the same edict he warns the forest peoples on his borders that he still has the power to punish them if they do wrong.

One detail is easy to miss. Rock Edict XIII is missing at Dhauli and Jaugada, the two inscription sites inside Kalinga itself. In its place are two Separate Kalinga Edicts addressed to his officials at Tosali and Samapa, telling them to treat the people fairly and saying that all people are his children. Ashoka apparently thought it wiser not to remind the conquered of the slaughter on their own soil.

How the war changed Ashoka

After Kalinga, Ashoka turned to Buddhism. In one of his Minor Rock Edicts he says he was a lay follower for more than a year without much effort, and then drew closer to the Buddhist sangha and became far more committed. The change was gradual, closer to a slow conversion than a single moment on the battlefield.

The policy he called dhamma was a moral code built on Buddhist ideas but written for followers of every faith. His edicts describe special officers called dhamma-mahamattas, medical care for people and animals, wells and shade trees along the roads, limits on killing animals in the royal kitchen, and respect between religious sects. These are some of the earliest written statements of how a ruler ought to behave towards his subjects.

He did not disband his army, and he kept the right to use force. But there is no record of any further war of conquest after Kalinga, which sets his reign apart from the long run of Indian wars that came later, such as the Battle of Panipat.

Spread of Buddhism after the Kalinga War

Ashoka’s support turned Buddhism from an Indian sect into a religion that spread across Asia. The Third Buddhist Council was held at Pataliputra during his reign, around 250 BCE, under the monk Moggaliputta Tissa. Missionaries were sent out in several directions, and Sri Lankan chronicles say his son Mahinda and daughter Sanghamitra took Buddhism to the island.

He also built or enlarged stupas, including the core of the Great Stupa at Sanchi, and Buddhist tradition credits him with 84,000 of them. His edicts were written mostly in Prakrit in the Brahmi script, with Kharosthi used in the northwest and Greek and Aramaic at Kandahar in Afghanistan. Read more on how this shaped ancient Indian civilization under the Mauryas.

What happened to Kalinga after the war?

Kalinga became a Mauryan province with its capital at Tosali, which is usually placed near Dhauli. The Separate Kalinga Edicts tell officials there to avoid unjust imprisonment and harsh punishment, and to visit regularly to check that justice is being done.

Kalinga did not stay quiet forever. After the Mauryan Empire weakened, it rose again under King Kharavela of the Mahameghavahana dynasty, whose Hathigumpha inscription at Udayagiri near Bhubaneswar dates to around the first century BCE. Within about two centuries of the war, Kalinga was a power in its own right again.

How Ashoka’s story was rediscovered

For nearly two thousand years, Ashoka was remembered mainly through Buddhist legend, and nobody could read his inscriptions. In 1837 James Prinsep deciphered the Brahmi script and read the edicts of a king who called himself Devanampiya Piyadasi, “Beloved of the Gods”. The final proof that this king was Ashoka came only in 1915, when an edict found at Maski in Karnataka named him directly.

Today the Lion Capital from Ashoka’s pillar at Sarnath, with four lions standing back to back, is India’s national emblem, adopted in 1950. The wheel at its base appears on the national flag.

Visiting Dhauli today

Dhauli is an easy half-day trip from Bhubaneswar. The edicts are cut into a large rock at the foot of the hill, and above them the front half of an elephant is carved out of the same rock, one of the oldest rock-cut sculptures in India. On top of the hill stands the white Shanti Stupa, or Peace Pagoda, built in 1972 with help from Japanese Buddhist organisations.

The inscription is in Prakrit and Brahmi, so it helps to carry an English translation of the Separate Kalinga Edicts on your phone and read it standing in front of the rock. If you have a second day, the Udayagiri caves with Kharavela’s inscription are close by, and Konark is about an hour and a half away by road.

Read Next

• Ashoka the Great: From Warrior to Peaceful Emperor
• The Rise of the Mauryan Empire: How India’s First Great Empire Was Built
• Konark Sun Temple: The Stone Chariot of Surya in Odisha

Frequently Asked Questions

Who was the king of Kalinga during the war?

We do not know. Ashoka’s edicts never name the ruler of Kalinga, and no other source from the time survives. Any name you see attached to him comes from later legend or modern fiction.

Do Buddhist texts say the Kalinga War made Ashoka a Buddhist?

No. The Buddhist chronicles that tell Ashoka’s story, such as the Sri Lankan Mahavamsa, do not mention Kalinga and credit his conversion to meeting a young monk. The link between the war and his change of heart comes from Ashoka’s own Rock Edict XIII.

How long did the Mauryan Empire last after Ashoka?

Ashoka died around 232 BCE, and the empire broke up under weaker successors. It ended in about 185 BCE, when the last Mauryan king, Brihadratha, was killed by his general Pushyamitra Shunga.