This tradition goes back to the time of Emperor Asoka, who reigned in India from 273 B.C. He was the grandson of Chandragupta who was the first to unify India. Ambitious like his ancestor whose achievements he was anxious to complete, he conquered the region of Kalinga which lay between what is now Calcutta and Madras. The Kalingans resisted and lost 100,000 men in the battle.
At the sight of this massacre Asoka was overcome. For ever after he experienced a horror of war. He renounced the idea of trying to integrate the rebellious people, declaring that the only true conquest was to win men’s hearts by observance of the laws of duty and piety, because the Sacred Majesty desired that all living creatures should enjoy security, peace and happiness and be free to live as they pleased.
A convert to Buddhism, Asoka, by his own virtuous example, spread this religion throughout India and his entire empire which included Malaya, Ceylon and Indonesia. Later Buddhism penetrated to Nepal, Thibet, China and Mongolia. Asoka nevertheless respected all religious sects. He preached vegetarianism, abolished alcohol and the slaughter of animals.
H.G. Wells, in his abridged version of his Outline of World History wrote:
"Among the tens of thousands of names of monarchs accumulated in the files of history, the name of Asoka shines almost alone, like a star."
It must be remembered that Korjybski’s General Semantics did not appear until 1937 and that it was not until the West had had the experience of the last World War that the techniques of the psychology of language, i.e. propaganda, could be formulated.
- The first American college of semantics only came into being in 1950. In France almost the only book that is at all well known is Serge Tchocotine’s Le Viol des Foules which has had a considerable influence in intellectual political circles, although it deals only superficially with the subject.
- The second book was on physiology. It explained, among other things, how it is possible to kill a man by touching him, death being caused by a reversal of the nerve-impulse. It is said that Judo is a result of "leakages" from this book.
- The third volume was a study on microbiology, and dealt especially with protective colloids.
- The fourth was concerned with the transmutation of metals. There is a legend that in times of drought temples and religious relief organizations received large quantities of fine gold from a secret source.
- The fifth volume contains a study of all means of communication, terrestrial and extra-terrestrial.
- The sixth expounds the secrets of gravitation.
- The seventh contains the most exhaustive cosmogony known to humanity.
- The eighth deals with light.
- The ninth volume, on sociology, gives the rules for the evolution of societies, and the means of foretelling their decline.
Connected with the Nine Unknown Men is the mystery of the waters of the Ganges. Multitudes of pilgrims, suffering from the most appalling diseases, bathe in them without harming the healthy ones. The sacred waters purify everything.