The Paltry Importance of Royal Families:
Ashoka’s Abhisheka
Why mention family in carvings on
Your stele, or other unimportant things
Like genealogy, your father has gone
To be among his ancestors, those kings
Not worthy of your note? The high shaped rock
Begins instead with consecration oil
The day that you became the one. You shock,
First choosing that ritual, not to spoil
With records of your father’s father or
The graveyards are full of fathers in your line.
What matters not is what went on before.
This stele is your regality’s tall shrine.
..You mark the rite that gives you gravest force
….To change your people’s and your kingdom’s course.