Romila Thapar. Asoka and the decline of the Mauryas: second edition. New York , Oxford University Press, 1973.

THE reign of Aśoka began to attract the attention of historians well over a century ago. In 1837, James Prinsep first published his work on the Aśokan inscriptions in a series of papers. The first monograph on Aśoka did not however appear until 1901, when Vincent Smith considered the subject in greater detail.