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Home , Dhauli, Jaugada, Lauriya Araraj, Sannati, Sarnath, Susmita Basu Majumdar

Component-I (A) – Personal details:

Prof. P. Bhaskar Reddy Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati.

Prof. P. Bhaskar Reddy Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati . & Dr. K. Muniratnam Director i/c, Epigraphy, ASI, Mysore.

Prof. Susmita Basu Majumdar Dept. of AIHC , University of Calcutta.

Prof. P. Bhaskar Reddy Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati.

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Component-I (B) – Description of module:

Subject Name Indian Culture

Paper Name Indian Epigraphy

Module Name/Title Asokan Inscriptions : An overview

Module Id IC / IEP / 26

Pre requisites History of Mauryan empire, rule Asoka and his edicts

To know about the typology of the edicts of Asoka and Objectives their content

Keywords Epigraphy / Asoka / Edicts / Mauryan

E-text (Quadrant-I) : Mauryan territory under Asoka extended from Afghanistan in the north to in the south and from Kathiwad in the west to Kalinga in the east (if not also northern Bengal). Only the areas to the east of north Bengal: , the north-east and parts of Andhra, Tamilnadu and were outside this realm. The nearly pan-Indian empire consisted of the metropolitan state of , the core areas—covering the territories of former mahajanapadas located mostly in north like Kasi, Kosala, Vatsa, Avanti, etc. and peripheral areas—covering Afghanistan and the Deccan. The Asokan records mention that neighbouring territories and powers as Cholas, Pandyas, Satyaputra, Keralaputras, Tamraparni/ and Seleukidian and Ptolemaic rulers of West Asia and Egypt. With the Greek rulers of West Asia and Egypt peaceful ties were maintained during the reigns of the first three Mauryan rulers, Chandragupta, Bidusara and Asoka, for nearly a century. Mauryas are credited with establishing a strong administrative system with a lofty ideal of paternalistic role of the emperor himself. They were the first power in India to have developed a graded bureaucracy with a differentiated salary-scale and varied functionaries: especially strong military and revenue administrative machinery. Asoka's Dhamma as a very broad-based ideology of the State, attempting a welding of a subcontinental society marked by immense diversities—ethnic, socio-economic, cultural and religious belief systems. Promotion of was done in course of the propagation of Dhamma, but Buddhism was never turned into the state cult/ religion in spite of Asoka's personal leanings to Buddhism. Asoka's emphasised on religious plurality: Maurya/'s encouragement to other Sramanic religions, including the Ajivikas with whom Buddhists and Jainas had major contestations.Major patronage was given to Buddhism by Asoka. Asokan rule witnessed for the first time the regular use of stone as the principal medium of . Inscribing the royal order on stones and pillars was a new idea as far as the Indian subcontinent was concerned. At a time when very few people were literate such a major step by an emperor was indeed an innovative concept towards immortality. Asokan records are thus the finest specimens of epigraphic records available in the subcontinent. Asokan records are the earliest deciphered inscriptions of the Indian subcontinent (as the script of the Harappan civilization is yet to be deciphered) and are found from Afghanistan to Karnataka. The first systematic publication of the texts was done by E Hultzch in Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum Volume I in 1925. Inscriptions discovered after 1925 are not

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included in it like Erragudi, Bombay-Sopara, Amaravati, , ten versions of minor rock edicts, Greek and edicts. Just before the publication of this work A.C Woolner had also published Asoka Text and Glossary in 1924. Later R.G. Basak’s Asokan Edicts (1959), D.C. Sircar’s Inscriptions of Asoka (1967) followed by Asokan Studies (1979) and B.N. Mukherjee’s Studies in the Aramaic Edicts of Asoka (1984) and K.R Norman and F.R. Allchin’s, A Guide to Asokan Inscriptions (1985) are major additions to the study of inscriptions of Asoka. Latest addition to the study of Asokan records was by Harry Falk (2006). Falk’s work focuses mainly on the Asokan sites and their character and the texts have not been discussed in detail in it. Asokan inscriptions are highly typical and exceptional as no such record has been found from the Indian subcontinent later. Asoka made several recessions of the same text and got them engraved on rocks and stone pillars. Thus same or similar texts have been duplicated at such sites. These are royal proclamations. Proclamation of emperor’s moral and religious sentiments form the content of most of the records which are exhortatory in nature and are expressed in first person. He used multiple languages and dialects and scripts for incising the records. Bilingual Asokan inscriptions are known : Greek and Aramaic and Indic and Aramaic from Afghanistan. This multilingual strategy might have been derived from Achaeminid model as the Behistun Inscription of Darius c. 520 BCE, here we find the use of first person and also use of trilingual combinations i.e. Old Persian, Akkadian and Elamite. Asokan edicts can be broadly divided into two categories those engraved on rocks and those engraved on pillars. Among those engraved on rocks are Major Rock Edicts, Separate edicts, Minor Rock Edicts and Cave inscriptions. Pillar edicts on the other hand can be divided into Major Pillar Edicts and Minor Pillar Edits. The earliest ones to be engraved were the Minor Rock Edicts followed by the Major Rock Edicts. These Major Rock Edicts were a set of fourteen edicts. Latest set were the Pillar Edicts. Asokan edicts were framed in a language which is a part of a larger group of languages known as Middle Indo Dialects or MIA Dialects which are collectively referred to as Asokan Prakrits. Principal dialect is eastern variety i.e. Magadhi. All the pillar edicts and several of rock edicts are in this dialect. Clear recognition and promotion of diversities in languages and scripts are noticeable. Prakrit (several dialects), Aramaic are (Semitic) and Greek (Indo-European); Brahmi, Kharoshti, Greek and Aramaic scripts were employed and all these were used for the first time. The Employment of scripts coincides with the emerging empire. Major Rock edicts have been reported from Shahbazgarhi, Manshera, Kalsi, and Erragudi Another set of fragmentary Edicts have been reported from Sopara now preserved in the Prince of Wales Museum Mumbai and mentioned as Bompay-Sopara edict, here only fragments of Rock Edict VIII and IX have been reported. These major rock edicts when seen of the map reveal that they were placed on the borders of the Asokan empire. Similar set of major rock edicts with an omission of three edicts and inclusion of two fresh edicts are found from and in Odhisa and Sannati in Karnataka. These are known as Separate Rock Edicts. D.C.Sircar mentioned them as Rock Edicts XV and XVI. Minor Rock Edicts have been reported from eighteen sites and another one from in Jaipur Rahjasthan, It is preserved in the Asiatic Society Kolkata and hence known as the Calcutta Bairat Edict. At Barabar we have a set of four caves Lomash Rishi cave, Sudama cave, Karn Chaupar amnd Viswamitra jhonpri which have polished walls and three out of these four caves only three bear records of Asoka. Lomash Rishi was abandoned as a crack developed in the cave and hence it does not have any inscription. These are mainly donative

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in character. They record the donation of the caves to Ajivikas by king Piyadasi i.e. Asoka. At the nearby Nagarjuni caves we also find the inscriptions of his grandson Dasaratha who also donated three caves to Ajivikas. Pillar Edicts are a set of six edicts preserved on Mauryan sandstone pillars at six places i.e. Topra brought to Delhi (known as the Delhi Topra Edicts), later brought to Delhi (known as the Delhi Meerut Edicts, , Lauriya Nandangarh, Rampurva and Allahabad Kosam. Of these the Delhi Topra is the longest of the inscriptions bearing the VIIth Pillar edict of Asoka. It summarizes and restates the contents of all the other pillar edicts and also to some extent the content of the major rock edicts as well. At Allahabad Kosam Pillar contain in addition to the six principal edicts two other brief additional inscriptions. The Queen’s Edict which mentions the gifts of the king’s second queen dutiye deviye. Second one is the so called schism edict which is addressed to the mahamatras of Kausambi which refers to the punishment to be inflicted on monks or nuns who cause schisms within the Buddhist samgha. Minor Pillar edicts are reported from five places , . Nihgali Sagar (Nepal), Rummindei (Nepal) and Amaravati which is fragmentary in nature. The Sanchi and Sarnatha records are more extensive texts on the banishment of schismatics. At Sarnath there is an additional note on the king’s order for the preservation and propagation of the order itself.Nigali Sagar records the king;s visit to the site and his expansion of the of Buddha Konakamana. Rummindei pillar inscriptions helps us to identify the place with the birth place of Buddha i.e. as the record clearly mentions that here Buddha was born. This record also commemorates the visit of the emperor to this site. Dating the Asokan records: Asokan inscriptions are the earliest Indian epigraphs that can be dated with any certainty. These records are dated in the regnal year of the ruler to be counted from the year post coronation. Rock Edict XIII mentions a major political event 8th year, 264 BCE Pillar edict VII at Delhi Topra dated in the 27th regnal year can be dated to 245 BCE. These are the earliest records which can be dated with certain amount of certainty as there are names of five contemporary Greek rulers i.e. yona raja. These names help in dating the epigraphs. The records were incised on stone when very few people in the Indian subcontinent had the knowledge of reading texts. Though these records were engraved on stone for the sake of permanence yet they were orally propagated. Separate Rock edict I at Dhauli which is addressed to the mahamattras of Tosali and Separate Rock edict I at Jauguda, addressed to the mahamatras of Samapa, states that the edict was to be heard on the day of Tishya constellation and also on suitable occasions. Separate Edict II at Dhauli and Jaugada, addressed to the Kumara and mahamattas in first case and the mahamattas of Samapa in second case advocates that this edict should be heard on every catummasi (Skt. Chaturmasi) on the day of Tishya constellation and in between. All this suggests ceremonial congregational reading. Rock edicts preceded the Pillar Edicts thus the pillar edicts were the last to be promulgated. Pillar had certain obvious advantages as they had flexibility in choice of site, flexibility of architectural monumentality and the height of the pillar compelled attention from a distance. These pillars have often been connected to Vedic yupas, Indra dhvajas, associated with ancient pillar cult, some scholars have also tried to associate them with varied cosmogonic myths and multi-facated symbolism. Even the post Mauryan Context of the Asokan records is also quite interesting. The Chinese pilgrim Fahsein and Xuan Chwang also mention about

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these edicts Asoka is mentioned in Chinese records as Wu-yau meaning one who is sorrowful. and Pillars built by Wu-yau places of associated with miraculous happenings past and contemporary. They try to connect the pillars with stupas and life of Buddha and associate them with the Jatakas. In the 14th century Delhi Topra and Delhi Meerut pillars were transported from their original sites to Delhi with great care and effort and installed there during the time of Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq. Shams Shiraj Afif in Tarikh-i-Firuz Shahi mentions how the Sultan saw the monolithic pillars during his military campoaigns and how he brought one which he called minar–i-zarin the Golden Column to Firuzabad near Jama masjid and the other near Kushk-i-Shhikar or the hunting place.Afif mentions them as belonging to the time of the Pandavas. Mentions them as walking sticks of Bhima. People from the village requested to bring silk and cotton cloth. Then the ground near the pillar was cleared and it fell on it then it was encased with reed and raw hides. Finally the pillar was carefully brought down on this hay stacked with cotton and silks. After this it was carefully moved to a specially constructed carriage with 42 wheels. Men pulled it with ropes and thus it reached the banks of Yamuna. Here the Sultan came in person to meet it. Pillar was heaved into several boats tied together and taken by river to Delhi. For long the Asokan edicts remain undeciphered and then some Brahmins gave the interpretation of the content of the edict and declared it as a prophecy that no one would be able to remove this pillar from it’s place till the great king Firuz comes to power. Afif also mentions that few years later when Mongol Timur invaded he was also impressed by the pillar. Raja Sasanas : Asokan records are also mentioned as sasanas. According to the Kautiliya Arthasastra Sasana are so named as they are used by the king to give commands. It mentions that the scribe should be endowed with the excellences' of a minister and should be able to read, understand and write well. The remainder of the passage describes the structure and contents of an edict. The ordering of the material, the expression and legibility are stressed. From this passage it is clear that writing played an important role in the life and work of the king and his government. According to this description whenever there arose a dispute in context of legal documents Raja sasana was used as a precedence. Summary : This broad overview of Asokan record attempts to provide information on ow the Asokan inscriptions can be used to get information and reconstruct the history of the period based on hard core evidences. These records were the first written records of early India (with the exception of the undeciphered Harappan seals). These were the earliest written statement in an Indo-Aryan language (Prakrit). Here we find the use of three different languages and scripts: Prakrit (various forms), Greek and Aramaic written in Brahmi, Kharoshti, Greek and Aramaic scripts. and Prakrit language in greater parts of the subcontinent; Kharoshti script and Prakrit language in inscriptions from the north-west; Greek and Aramaic in Taxila and several places in Afghanistan. The records are unique stating the ruler’s sayings in first person, addressing officers and subjects.Very wide distribution of the findspots of Asokan inscriptions in the subcontinent and parts of Afghanistan—clearest proof of the almost pan-Indian expanse of the Maurya realm. They also provide information regarding political events—for example a graphic description of the Kalinga conquest is found in Major Roc Edict XIII. The Maurya realm has been designated in the inscriptions by using mainly two terms viz. Jambudvipa (Minor Rock Edict I), Pathivi (Nittur Minor Rock

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Edict I) There are clear statement on the bordering areas, including Yona (Yavana kings) in the Major Rock Edicts II and XIII.References to five contemporary Yavana (Greek) kings by name (Rock Edict XIII) helping a secure dating of Asoka’s reign (272-233 BCE).Asokan edicts recording large number of functionaries of diverse ranks, usually anonymous. Personal zeal of the king himself – pakama (Minor Rock EdictI, Separate Rock Edict I and II. State affairs (atha-kamma/artha-karma—(Rock Edict VI). Ayaputa or Aryaputra i.e. the heir apparent was placed at Suvarnagiri—(Minor Rock EdictI at Brahmagiri, Siddapura and Jatinga-Rameshwar). Kumaras were in charge of provincial headquarters (SREs I and II); only one Kumara mentioned by name—Samba (Pangurariya Minor Rock Edict I). Among other high ranking officers were Pulisa/Purusha of three grades: high, middle and low (Pillar Edict I). Mahamatras were of various types and categories on the basis of the work that they handled: Amta (Separate Rock Edict I), Itijhaka (Rock Edict XII), Vachabhumika (Rock Edict XII),Nagalaviyohalaka (Separate Rock Edict I), Dhammamahamatra (Rock Edicts V, Pillar Edicts V and VII).Judge W’su (Vasu?)Mahamatra in Minor Rock Edicts at Brahmagiri, Siddapura and Jatinga-Rameshwar.Among the revenue terms which have been found in the records are —bali and bhaga (Rummindei Pillar Inscription). Royal highway or Karapathi mentioned in the Aramaic edicts from Laghman is also quite significant. Forest dwellers have been mentioned in the Major Rock Edict XIII,elephant riders, other professional and their apprentices- have been mentioned in Minor Rock Edict II. Whsu (Vakshu) as a governor in Laghman, Afghanistan (Laghman Edict II), Parisha (council of ministers?)—are mentioned in Rock Edict III and VI. Pativedaka or messengers, informers (Rock Edict VI), Rajukas Rock Edicts II and IV. Among other administrative information which can be deduced from the records are district like administrative units—ahara (Minor Rock Edict at and Sanchi Pillar inscription); janapada (Rock Edict II), Yutas i.e. Yuktas mentioned in Rock Edict III. These inscriptions also reflect on Dhamma propagated by Asoka. Such information occurs in most of the edicts; some salient features of Dhamma as an ideology of state, to weld a subcontinental society.Practice of certain virtues (Pillar Edict II); avoidance of certain vices (Pillar Edict III); c) banning of war drum, replaced with dhammaghosha, banning of hunting expedition; e) banning of slaughter, fishing, hunting ( f)) banning of samaja (Rock Edict I); g) promotion of the essence of all sects (bhavasudhi Rock Edict XII); h) disapproval of overpraising one’s own sect and disparaging others’ sects (Rock Edict XII); i) seemly behaviour to parents and elders, slaves and servants (Minor Rock Edict II; Rock Edict IV); j) firm devotion or adherence (didhabhatita—Rock Edict XII, XIII; comparable with firm devotion to the king’s interests in the Greek edict); l) To maintain according to Dhamma, to rule according to Dhamma, to ensure happiness according to Dhamma and to protect according to Dhamma (Dhammena palana, dhammena vidhana, dhammena sukhiyana dhammens gotiti) Minor Rock Edicts and a few more inscriptions like the Rummindei Pillar Inscription, Niaglisagar Pillar Inscription, Schism Edicts, Bhabra Edict relate to the promotion of Buddhism. Other sectslike Brahmanas, Nirgranthasare also referred to in the records in Pillar Edict V, VII; Ajivikas are mentioned in inscriptions from Barabar. Asoka also was involved in philanthropic activities for the welfare of his subjects and also territories outside his Empire. In Rock Edict II it is mentioned that two types of medical treatment were established for men and for animals. Roots and fruits (mulani ca phalani) wherever necessary were planted halapita and lopapita i.e.harapitani (brought or imported) and ropapitani (planted)medical facilities for human beings and beasts alike and list of inviolate animals and birds are also provided in the edits i.e. the Laghman edicts, Pillar Edict V).

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Among other philanthropic activities were digging of wells on the road sides (Major Rock Edict III).

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