Dhauli is located in the ancient territory of Kalinga, now the state of Orissa, which the emperor Ashoka Maurya (reigned 272-231 BC) conquered with an appalling loss of life in about 260 BC.
Thereafter Ashoka repented of the violence which he had done and converted to Buddhism.
He expressed his remorse, and his intention to govern the kingdom according to the principles of his new faith, in a series of rock-cut edicts that he ordered to be inscribed on over a 100 monuments throughout his vast kingdom.