On the occasion of Mahavir Jayanti on Tuesday (March 31), Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the Samrat Samprati Museum in Koba, Gandhinagar. The museum is dedicated to Jain history and the life of Samrat Samprati, the grandson of the Mauryan ruler Ashoka.

Unlike Ashoka, who is  known for helping spread Buddhism, Samprati is remembered for his deep association with Jainism. Here’s how Samprati was instrumental in spreading the faith across the subcontinent and beyond.

Beyond Ashoka’s Buddhist legacy

The rise and spread of the Mauryan Empire in the third century BCE, with all its associated grandeur and administrative order, is well known. Ashoka, who ruled from circa 269 to 232 BCE, is credited with expanding the empire and later instituting a moral framework grounded in Buddhist virtues. According to John E. Cort in Framing the Jina: Narratives of Icons and Idols in Jain History (2010): “He created a model for ethical kingship that persists today in the religious and political imaginaire of Buddhist Southeast Asia.” Indeed, Buddhists often regard Ashoka as almost single-handedly responsible for the spread of Buddhism beyond the north Indian landscape.

Yet, despite the prominence of Buddhism under the Mauryas, Jainism remained an important religious tradition. “Asoka’s wives were predominantly Buddhist, but his first wife, Padmavati, was a Jain,” notes Michael C. Howard in Transnationalism in Ancient and Medieval Societies (2012).

Another Mauryan figure central to Jain narratives is Ashoka’s grandfather, Chandragupta Maurya, who,  Jain traditions say, embraced the faith. “The Digambara historians credit him with leading a migration south to avoid a great famine, and eventually dying in meditation at the holy shrine of Shravana Belgola [in present-day Karnataka],” writes Cort.

While Chandragupta Maurya is venerated in the Digambara Jain tradition, “for Shvetambaras, the central person in the Mauryan dynasty was Ashoka’s grandson and successor, Samprati,” notes Cort. Although several of Ashoka’s sons are said to have contested the throne after his death in 232 BCE, historical sources offer little consensus on the line of succession.

A popular theory, also mentioned by Colleen Taylor Sen in Ashoka and the Maurya Dynasty (2022), is that the empire was divided between his grandsons: Dasharatha and Samprati.

Samprati was the son of Kunala. Jain texts, in particular, portray him as an adherent who played a significant role in the dissemination of Jina images across the subcontinent.

The Jain counterpart to Ashoka

Samprati is believed to have reigned between 230 and 220 BCE. According to Cort, “The story of Samprati first emerges in Shvetambara writings… in the context of the rules of monastic practice.”

Over time, his legacy grew, with anonymous and undated medieval works devoted entirely to him, such as the 461-verse Sanskrit Deeds of King Samprati (Samprati Nripa Charitra).

Some traditions describe Samprati as a Jain from birth, but most accounts emphasize his conversion under the monk Suhastin, the eighth leader of the Jain congregation established by Mahavira, whom he is said to have met in Ujjain.

“The king accepted Suhastin as his guru, and adopted the ritual conduct of a Jain layman, including the daily practice of icon worship,” writes Cort. His propagation of Jainism was likely shaped by personal and regional influences.

Ashoka’s successors are often faulted for lacking his vision, particularly in their understanding of dhamma. H C Raychaudhuri argues that Ashoka’s rejection of aggressive militarism weakened the empire’s military efficiency. Resentment among Brahmanical groups, provoked by Ashoka’s support of Buddhism and other heterodox sects, his ban on sacrifices etc, may also have encouraged his successors to move away from Buddhism.

Following his conversion, Samprati is credited with actively promoting Jainism across the subcontinent and beyond — facilitating the movement of monks into distant regions, constructing and renovating thousands of temples, and establishing vast numbers of icons.

Some authors even attribute to him the spread of Jain teachings to regions as far as China, Burma (now Myanmar), Afghanistan, Nepal, and Bhutan, while consolidating the religion in areas such as Andhra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Saurashtra, Gujarat, Malva, and Rajputana. More expansive interpretations go further still, crediting him with extending Jain influence into Central Asia, the Arabian peninsula, and parts of West Asia.

These accounts bear a striking resemblance to Buddhist narratives of Ashoka’s missionary activities. “Further, just as Ashoka not only spread the Buddhist teachings but also instituted the Buddhist ritual culture of stupas throughout these lands, so Samprati did more than send missionaries. He also built temples and installed icons,” writes Cort.

Samprati’s actions are not portrayed as politically motivated. A devoted follower of Suhastin, he is believed to have had deep commitment to the Jain dharma. “It was Samprati who enabled monks to travel to the lands of the unenlightened barbarians, and it was Samprati who then spread the ritual culture of temples and icons to those same lands and thereby enabled those people to become fully Jain themselves,” notes Cort. Tradition credits him with building 125,000 new temples, renovating 36,000 old ones, consecrating 12,500,000 stone and 95,000 metal icons, and establishing 700 charitable centers for the poor.

Even today, Jain communities in western India often attribute the construction of ‘old’ temples (those lacking firm inscriptional or textual evidence) to Samprati, as well as the installation of ancient icons without donor records. “Samprati and his temples and icons thereby came to occupy a place in the Jain history of western India closely analogous to that occupied by Ashoka in the Buddhist history of India,” writes Cort.