India`s lost emperor Ashoka Maurya has a special place in history. In his quest to govern India by moral force alone he turned Buddhism from a minor sect into a world religion, & set up a new yardstick for government. But Ashoka`s bold experiment ended in tragedy & he was forgotten for almost two thousand years. In this beautifully written, multi-layered journey Charles Allen describes how fragments of the Ashokan story were gradually discovered, pieced together by a variety of British Orientalists: antiquarians, archaeologists & epigraphists. In doing so, they did much to recover India`s ancient history itself. The Lost Emperor tells the story of the man who was arguably the greatest ruler India has ever known.