ABSTRACT
While re-reading recently a book on Buddhism by an eminent Buddhist scholar, I noticed the following statement: “This notion of establishing the sāsana or Buddhism in a particular country or a place was perhaps first conceived by Aśoka himself. He was the first king to adopt Buddhism as a state religion, and to start a great spiritual conquest which was called dharma-vijaya…. Like a conqueror and ruler who would establish governments in countries politically conquered by him, so Aśoka probably thought of establishing the sāsana in countries spiritually conquered by him”.1
