000			01294nam a22001577a 4500
999			_c520406 _d520406
008			220913b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
100			_aYelle, Robert A. _934024
245			_aWas Aśoka really a secularist avant-la-lettre? Ancient Indian pluralism and toleration in historical perspective
260			_aModern Asian Studies
300			_a56(3), May, 2022: p.749-775
520			_aFocusing on Rajeev Bhargava's claim that Aśoka was a secularist avant-la-lettre, I dispute the common understanding of secularism as the separation of religion and politics, and argue instead that such separation, to the extent that it existed, was characteristic of traditional religious societies. I then offer an alternative history of secularism as the demise of the traditional balance of power between church and state, and the rise of a unitary state which incorporated a civil religion that excluded competing forms of religiosity within its domain. This model of secularism, exemplified by the seventeenth-century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, fits Aśoka's Dhamma better than the separationist model does. – Reproduced
650			_aAsoka, Rajeev Bhargava, Thomas Hobbes, Secularism, Toleration. _932879
773			_aModern Asian Studies
906			_aINDIA - HISTORY
942			_cAR