India is renowned as an incubator of religion. The South Asian nation's countless sects make it widely known for its deep and abiding spirituality. In some respects, the history of India is the history of conflict between the most respected faiths. Even today, India's political landscape is defined by the struggle between those who insist that religion is a nationality (Islam) and those who argue that, as a historical entity, India is essentially Hindu and all other faiths are intruders. India is rich in history and shrines of the Hindu faith, although its most famous shrine, the Taj Mahal, is as Muslim as Mecca. However, it is a Hindu aura that permeates the India of the Western imagination. And what about the fact that there are Hindu shrines? After all, extant examples of truly ancient Hindu relics are scarce. Perhaps the battle for India's souls has claimed more casualties in the form of the Islamic tendency to destroy everything that comes its way. More likely, though, the Hinduism of the world before King Ashoka was not the all-encompassing cultural touchstone that more nationalistic Indians believe it to be. To the Western observer, Hinduism seems cruel, almost cartoonish, and the animist gods are disconcerting. But these depictions of the forces that govern human existence are a direct reaction to Ashoka's move to push the cruder elements of Hindu ritual underground, so to speak, and to embrace the Buddhist principle that spirituality is the province of every man , regardless of his position in life. . No, just as Christianity in Europe embraced the pagan customs of converts and subsumed them, so too Hinduism adopted the egalitarianism of the Buddhist faith. This was no coincidence, for Ash's India... half of the card... recovered. Bibliography Bhargava, Purushottam Lal and Radhakumud Mookerji. Chandragupta Maurya. Lucknow: Upper India Publishing House, 1935. Dhammika, Shravasti. The fourteen rock edicts. Kandy: The Buddhist Publication Society, 1994.Geiger, Wilhelm. The Mahamvasa. Colombo: Government of Ceylon, 1912. Kumar, Raj. Ancient history of Jammu region. New Delhi: Gyan Publishing House, 2004. Republic of India. “National symbols”. Last modified: February 21, 2014. http://india.gov.in/india-glance/national-symbols.Singh, Upinder. A history of ancient and early medieval India: from the Stone Age to the 12th century. New Delhi: Pearson Publishing, 2008. Skilton, Andrew. A concise history of Buddhism. Birmingham: Windhorse Publications, 1994. Strong, John S. The Legend of King Aśoka: A Study and Translation of the Aśokāvadāna. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.