Ashokan Edicts as Inscriptions: Script, Language and Decipherment

1.1 What is an edict, and what is a script?

An edict is a royal order. Ashoka had his edicts cut into rocks and pillars so that everyone could read them. A script is the set of letters used to write a language.

Think of English and Hindi. Both can be written in the Roman letters, so the script can change while the language stays the same.

Most of Ashoka’s edicts use Brahmi, a script widely used across the subcontinent at the time. In the northwest, he used Kharosthi. Near Kandahar, in Afghanistan, he used Greek and Aramaic.

1.2 What is special about Kharosthi?

Kharosthi is written from right to left. Brahmi runs from left to right. This is why Kharosthi is easy to spot on an edict.

It was used in Gandhara, in the northwest of present-day Pakistan. It was invented around the 3rd century BCE and may come from the Aramaic script.

Kharosthi was used to write Gandhari, a Prakrit. A Prakrit is an everyday spoken language of ancient India. It is different from classical Sanskrit.

The Shahbazgarhi First Edict is a famous Kharosthi example. Shahbazgarhi lies about 15 km north-northwest of Mardan, on the Peshawar plain. It sat on an old Karakoram route.

1.3 Why did he choose different scripts?

Ashoka wanted people to understand the message. So he used the writing that local people could read. A Greek reader in Kandahar could not read Brahmi.

His edicts were placed at the frontiers and on busy trade routes and pilgrim sites. None was placed in his capital. That put them where many people would see them.

The scholar Harry Falk suggests Ashoka chose places where large crowds gathered, at least at certain times of the year.

2.1 What was found at Kandahar?

The Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription has two parts. Greek is on the upper part. Aramaic is on the lower part. Bilingual means written in two languages.

It was found in the late 1950s near the Chehel Zina hill at Old Kandahar. Old Kandahar was the ancient city of Alexandria Arachosia, founded by Alexander the Great’s people.

It dates to about 260 BCE. The Greek text itself begins “ten years having elapsed”, so it was carved ten years after Ashoka’s coronation.

It is the earliest known Ashokan inscription and the westernmost one known. Kandahar sat on the main route linking the subcontinent with Central Asia.

2.2 Why Greek and Aramaic?

The edict stood on the border with the Hellenistic world. Many Greeks, called Yavanas, lived there. The Greek part spoke to them.

Aramaic was the language of the old Persian (Achaemenid) empire. That part was probably meant for the Kambojas, who had settled in the northwest of the Mauryan empire.

2.3 What does it say, and how do the two texts differ?

Both parts say that Ashoka taught the way of Dhamma, or right conduct. Killing of animals had declined. Even hunters and fishermen had given up hunting. People obeyed their parents and elders.

The wording is not identical. In Filliozat’s translation, the Aramaic text says “our Lord Priyadarsi, the king”. The Greek text says “King Piodasses”. Piodasses is the Greek spelling of Piyadasi, Ashoka’s title in the edicts.

“Our Lord” suggests that the people of the region saw Ashoka as their ruler. His grandfather Chandragupta had received this area from Seleucus around 305 BCE.

A second, Greek-only inscription was also found at Kandahar. It holds parts of Edicts XII and XIII. Both finds were kept in the Kabul Museum. They were stolen when the museum was looted in 1992 to 1994.

3.1 Why could nobody read the edicts?

Brahmi had gone out of use. In the 14th century, Sultan Firoz Shah Tughlaq brought two Ashokan pillars to Delhi. He asked learned scholars what they said. Nobody could read them.

For centuries people guessed. Some thought the writing was Greek, or that Alexander had set up the pillars.

3.2 Who was Prinsep?

James Prinsep (1799 to 1840) came to India in 1819 as an assay master at the Calcutta Mint. In 1830 he became the first editor of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

As editor, he received coins and inscriptions from all over India. His mint work had made him a keen student of coins.

3.3 What was the clue?

First, Prinsep compared the inscriptions on the pillars at Delhi, Allahabad and Bettiah. He found that all three said the same thing. But he still could not read them.

Then came the breakthrough in 1837. Captain Edward Smith sent him copies of short writings on the stone railings at Sanchi. Most ended with the same two characters.

Prinsep realised they were not Sanskrit. He read the pair as danam, meaning “gift”. These were donors’ records, and a donor’s name is naturally followed by “gift”. That one word gave him a firm start.

From there, one letter led to the next. Each new letter was tested on other inscriptions. Slowly, the whole script opened up.

3.4 Who was Piyadasi?

The edicts named a king, Devanampiya Piyadasi. In 1838 Prinsep told the Asiatic Society about the finding. George Turnour, writing from Ceylon, then used Sri Lankan Buddhist texts. They showed that Piyadasi was a title of Ashoka.

4.1 What helped with Kharosthi?

Brahmi had no helper text. Kharosthi did. Indo-Greek kings ruled the northwest. Their coins carried the king’s name in Greek on one side and in Kharosthi on the other.

A reader who knows the Greek name can match each letter with its Kharosthi twin. That is how the script started to open.

4.2 Who gets the credit?

Several scholars worked on it in the 19th century: Prinsep, Christian Lassen, C.L. Grotefend and Edwin Norris. Charles Masson also matched Greek and Kharosthi coin names and sent his findings to Prinsep in 1838.

For exams, the usual answer for “who deciphered Brahmi and Kharosthi” is James Prinsep.

5.1 Which sites should you know?

The Major Rock Edicts are a group of 14 texts. Some sites, such as Girnar and Yerragudi, hold all 14. Others hold only part of the group.

• Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra are in Pakistan, in the northwest.
• Kalsi is near Dehradun, in Uttarakhand.
• Girnar (Junagadh) is in Gujarat and holds all 14 edicts.
• Yerragudi (Erragudi) is near Gooty in Andhra Pradesh. All 14 edicts are found here.
• Dhauli (near Bhubaneswar) and Jaugada (near Ganjam) are both in Odisha.

Markham Kittoe discovered Dhauli and Jaugada in 1837. That is the same year as Prinsep’s breakthrough.

How have these edicts been tested?

The answer is (b). Dhauli and Erragudi are matched correctly. Jaugada is in Odisha and Kalsi is in Uttarakhand. Section 5 lists the sites.

The answer is (d). Prinsep is the usual exam answer. Section 4 shows that others also worked on Kharosthi.

The answer is (b). Prinsep read Brahmi, the script of most edicts. Section 3 tells the story.