Hook: What if Ashoka never “gave up war” — and everything you were taught about him was built on the wrong sources? Historian Sahana Vijayakumar and author Rakesh Kanojia dismantle the myth at the Indraprastha Cultural Festival.
Sahana opens with a forensic reading of Ashoka’s own rock and pillar edicts — demonstrating that his governance framework was drawn directly from Arthashastra karikas. The Mantri Parishad, the prativedaka officer, the Vijita-Avijita Pradesh geography — all documented in stone by Ashoka himself — reveal a statesman of sophisticated, rules-bound authority, not a remorseful pacifist who surrendered power to Buddhism.
Rakesh grounds the conversation in lived civilizational rupture: the Mauryan empire absent from his schoolbooks despite his Bihar roots; the grandparent-grandchild memory chain broken by colonial education and the dismantling of Gurukuls. He reframes India’s resistance to conquest not as 1000 years of defeat but as a 700-year civilizational holding action — with Shivaji reversing the tide in a single 8-decade arc. The session closes with a philological meditation on why the word “Hindu” itself originates in Darius’s inscriptions — a reminder that India’s deepest identities were forged in cross-civilizational encounter, not isolation.

About the Speakers:
Sahana Vijayakuma writes in Kannada. Her three novels have been published so far. The second novel, ‘Kasheera’, having Kashmir as its theme, has been widely acclaimed since its release and has seen five prints to date. In addition to English, ‘Kasheera’ is also being published in Hindi and Marathi. The third novel, ‘Avasaana,’ portraying the filial philosophy of ‘Pandharpur’ entwined with the stark realism of ‘Kamathipur’, was released in Feb 2020 and is now being translated to Marathi.

Rakesh Kanojia is Author of ‘Dharma Yodha’, a book that is a bold reclamation of identity.
With over thirty years as an IT consultant and a habit of studying the history of every land he visits. The Author noticed recurring themes—cultural erasure, spiritual suppression, and Mleccha colonial narratives that mirrors Bharat’s own experience. In an age where biased narratives cloud our understanding of the past, the Author’s book stands as a compelling call to action, especially for those silenced due to limited knowledge of Sanatan heritage.Sahana