Patna, the capital of the Indian state of Bihar, known as Fahrenheit in ancient times, was the capital of the ancient kingdom of Magadha. Patna has many archaeological sites from the Ashoka period, including a palace ruin, which is fascinating in both its size and its legend. According to the Biography of Ashoka, the palace was built on the orders of Ashoka, and the secret chamber in it was drawn and supervised by Ashoka himself.
Master Xuanzang once visited this place and wrote this story into the Records of the Western Regions of the Great Tang Dynasty. It is said to be the world's first bloody and cruel chamber of secrets. The torture devices and torture methods inside are unheard of. Except for Ashoka himself and the executioner in charge of the Chamber of Secrets, no one could get out of the Chamber alive.
The second king of the Peacock Dynasty, Bintou Luo, had 16 wives raised in the palace, as well as countless mistresses scattered in the city and countryside, who bore him 101 sons. Ashoka and Bintujura's youngest son, Tissa, were compatriots of the same mother, and their mother was named Saharaji. When Saharaj was born, an astrologer predicted that she would become queen and that one of her sons would become kings.
Saharaj grew up to be beautiful and was taken by his father to the palace of Bintou Luo. The king's wives were jealous of her beauty and, on the pretext of her lowly origins, dissuaded the king from marrying her, leaving her only to become a court hairdresser. But in the end, Saharaj convinces the king that she was born a noble Brahmin and became the number one queen.
However, the most favored queen, Ashoka, who gave birth to the king, was not only extremely ugly, but also had a strange personality. He wouldn't let anyone touch his lips, including his father. Therefore, this great future king was very unpopular with his father, Bintou Luo. But Ashoka had shown a very aggressive personality and fighting ability since he was a child, and few of his older brothers had ever beaten him.
Because of this, although his father did not like him, he received the best military training from an early age. He is said to have killed a lion with just a wooden ruler. Because of his ruthlessness and bravery, and also because of his military command ability, he became the vanguard of his father's suppression of the rebellion and killing of the enemy. After several military achievements, he was sent to the provinces as governor.
In 272 BC, King Bintou Luo was dying. The old king's identified successor was originally the eldest son, Sushin. But he was not favored by his ministers, who thought he was too arrogant and incompetent to govern the country, and turned to support Ashoka. One of the ministers had Ashoka dressed as a bearded elephant and rode him to the bed in the golden house of Bintou Luo. The dying old king thought that the eldest son, Sushen, was standing in front of him, and with his last strength he handed the king's scepter to Ashoka.
Ashoka, who became king in this way, naturally could not convince his 100 brothers, so an unusually fierce brotherly war broke out. In three years, Ashoka killed 99 of his 100 brothers, leaving only his half-brother Tissa. In 269 BC, Ashoka calmed the situation and held a coronation ceremony. Over the next 8 years, Ashoka conquered the north and conquered the territory and established a unified and powerful Indian kingdom.
Ashoka of this period, because of his murderous and cruel methods, was called "Black Ashoka". He had killed 100,000 people and taken 150,000 prisoners in a war, and he did not blink in the face of a mountain of bloody corpses. It is said that 500 court officials were killed because they failed his loyalty test. A concubine offended him, and he slaughtered all the animals in the concubine's womb and razed the palace to the ground.
The story of the secret chamber of Patna's palace, recorded in the biography of Ashoka and Xuanzang's Records of the Western Regions of the Great Tang, is another example of his cruelty and evil. This palace is known as the "Heavenly Hell", also known as the "Ashoka Hell". Because the palace itself is beautifully decorated, full of flowers, fruit trees. But in the secret chambers deep in the beautiful palace, there are the most cruel torture devices, such as hell on earth.
In order to make torture in the Chamber of Secrets a weapon of his rule, Ashoka sent a mission across the country to find cruel and fierce people who could become his official executioners. Later, they discovered a candidate named Glick. Glick killed his parents with his own hands because they didn't want him to be Ashoka's executioner. Hearing this story, Ashoka did not say a word and issued an appointment to Glick.
The book does not record how many people died in the Chamber of Secrets who could not withstand torture, nor do it record other details of the torture chamber, except that Ashoka sometimes came to the Chamber of Secrets to watch The Execution of Glick, and pervertedly derived great pleasure and satisfaction from it. But one day, while Grimk was torturing a prisoner, a miracle happened.
A Buddhist named Samudra, after being pushed into a boiling cauldron by Glick's assistant, instead of screaming, sat cross-legged in an iron cauldron of tumbling water, human blood, human bones, and human feces, moving up and down with the porphyrin flames. The news soon reached Ashoka's ears, and he couldn't help but be curious, and he decided to go into the Chamber of Secrets to find out.
Seeing Samudra rise and fall in the steam of water, Ashoka asked Samudra, Who are you and who I am. Samudra replied, I am a disciple of Shakyamuni, and after death I ascend to heaven, you are an evil devil, and after death you can only go to hell with a thousand swords. In this way, the two people asked and answered each other. Samudra said that Ashoka's sins were deep and unforgivable.
The only way to eliminate sins is to destroy this palace and secret chamber, build 84,000 stupas, and promote the Dharma and stop killing. Ashoka was silent for a moment, then looked at Samudra sitting on the fire with steam for a while, and nodded in agreement. He ordered Glick to burn down the vault and the palace, and then converted to Buddhism together.
From then on, he was known as the "devout Ashoka", who gave up the war, treated all life well, and became the most powerful propagator of Buddhism. It was from him that Buddhism became a widely practiced religion, not only throughout India, but also in Southeast Asia. He really built stupas, temples, and allocated a lot of money from the state treasury for Buddhist causes, as Samudra said. He spread his fortune so much that he frightened his courtiers, who thought it was an ominous sign that the empire was about to end.
Because the courtiers objected to the inability to allocate funds from the treasury, he donated his wealth in batches. By the time of his death, all his personal money had been scattered. Ashoka died in 232 BC with the honorific title of "Protector of the Dharma". At the time of the cremation, his body was said to have burned for a full 7 days and 7 nights.