India, July 9 -- By Dr. Devdutt Pattanaik - Author, Speaker, Illustrator, Mythologist

Over 2,200 years ago, two rulers on opposite ends of Asia confronted a similar problem: how to hold together vast, diverse territories emerging from long periods of conflict. Qin Shi Huang in China and Ashoka in India both inherited States forged through conquest. Yet the solutions they offered to the problem of unity could not have been more different.

Qin Shi Huang rose in a landscape fractured by the Warring States. His goal was not merely political unification but the elimination of difference. Unity, in his imagination, required uniformity. Once he defeated rival kingdoms, he dismantled the old feudal order. Aristocrats were displaced and power wa...