​Read the following passage and answer the questions:

Aśoka (c. 273-236 B.C.), the grandson of Chandragupta, styled ‘the beloved of the gods’ and ‘of lovable appearance’, succeeded to the throne of Pātaliputra by winning a fratricidal war. Nine years after his accession he rounded off the empire which he inherited from his grandfather by annexing Kalinga. The Kalinga war brought to the emperor a violent reaction, no doubt under the influence of Buddha’s teachings. He regretted the vast numbers of men killed or taken prisoner; he bemoaned the lot of pious men and women to whom befell ‘personal violence, death or banishment from loved ones’; and he eschewed for ever war as an instrument of governance. ‘If any one does him wrong, the “beloved of the god” must bear all that can be borne. He embarked on a career of Dharma Vijaya, conquest through Dharma. He set up a network of missions to preach Dharma; declared that all men were his children; ‘and what little effort I make, – what is it for ? – (in order) that I may be free from debt to the creatures, that I may render some happy here and that they may gain heaven in the next world’, said he. The Emperor constituted himself as the guardian of the moral and material welfare of the world.