Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 13.djvu/131

INDIAN.] INSCRIPTIONS 119 positions are Afghanistan, the foot of the Himalayas, the extreme east and west of the centre of India, and presump tively Ceylon, where it is known from other sources that Asoka ruled. The inscription of Shahbaz-garhi is the only one in the Ariano-Pali character, the others are in the Lat or Indian Pali alphabet. The language of all of them is a Prakrit or a sort of Pali, the immediate descendant of Sanskrit, but bearing marks of a long process of detrition. There are dialectical differences in the different versions, and there are also divergences of spelling, as Idja = raja, dipi = lipi, c. The Khalsi inscription differs from the other Indian Pali versions in having two of the three dis tinct sibilants of the Sanskrit, while the others have only one. The inscriptions at Girnar, Khalsi, and Shahbaz-garhi consist of fourteen distinct edicts ; those at Dhauli and Jaugada omit three of them, but add two new ones, which, being written apart, are known as the "detached edicts." When Prinsep and his pandit made their translations, they had before them only the two versions of Girnar and Dhauli. On the publication of the Shahbaz-garhi version Professor H. H. Wilson made a comparison of the three, and brought out an amended translation which was certainly an improvement upon Prinsep s ; but he was far from satisfied with his performance, and declared it " open to correction on every page." The learned and critical Burnouf subsequently studied them, and made fresh translations of parts, which again marked an advance, but he declared that "personne ne peut se flatter d arriver du premier coup a 1 intelligence definitive de ces monumens difficiles." Professor Kern of Leyden has since worked upon them, and his method is turning the language back into Sanskrit and then translating into English. This process only carries out more systematically that of the previous translators. They all interpreted the inscriptions through Sanskrit, making use of such knowledge of Pali and the other Prakrits as they possessed or could acquire. The translations are acknowledged to be imperfect and unsatisfactory, and no great improvement can be expected through Sanskrit alone. The words vary greatly in form from their Sanskrit originals, and some changes of meaning and construction no doubt accompanied their alterations in form. Comparative philology, in tracing back the modern tongues of India through the Prakrits to the Sanskrit, will probably throw fresh light upon the language of the inscriptions, and make more perfect translations possible. All the known inscriptions of Asoka are now accessible to the student. General Cunningham, the Archaeological Surveyor of Hindustan, has published the first volume of his Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, in which he has given carefully corrected facsimiles, with parallel translitera tions, of the five versions and all published translations. Mr Burgess also has published an excellent collotype of the Girnar version, with transcriptions and translations, in his Archeeoloyical Survey of KdtJiidivdr. Asoka was a convert to Buddhism, but his edicts bear few distinctive marks of that or any formal religion, and they are entirely free from vaunts of his power and dignity. They inculcate a life of morality and temperance, a practical religion, not one of rites and ceremonies. They proscribe the slaughter of animals, and they enjoin obedience to parents, affection for children, friends, and dependants, reverence for elders, Buddhist devotees, and Brahmans, universal benevolence, and unreserved toleration. They would seem to have been set up at a time when there were few differences between Buddhists and Brahmans, and their apparent object was to unite the people in a bond of peace by a religion of morality and charity free from dogma and ritual. One of the edicts provides for the appointment of missionaries to spread the religion. The thirteenth edict refers to Asoka s foreign relations. It mentions the Greek king Antiochus, and refers to some connexion through him with four other kings, Ptolemy, Antigonus, Magas, and Alexander, or, to quote the words of the Shahbaz-garhi version, " Antiyoke nama Yona-raja parancha tena Antiyokena chaturo |||| rajane Turamaye nama Antikini nama Maka nama Alikasandare nama." The four strokes are numerals, equi valents of the word chaturo (four), and in the Khalsi ver sion the numerical sign used is + . Prinsep and his pftndit gave a confused rendering of this edict, but no one else has attempted to translate it. There has been some difference of opinion as to the identification of these Greek kings, but the most approved names are Antiochus Theos of Syria, Ptolemy II. of Egypt, Antigonus of Macedonia, Magas of Gyrene, and Alexander II. of Epirus, 253-251 B.C. Besides the five great inscriptions of Asoka, there are six other rock inscriptions consisting of single edicts, three of which, found at Sahsaram, Rupnath, and Bairat are the same, but the last is imperfect. Dr G. Buhler has trans lated them. A second and different inscription at Bairat has been translated by Wilson, Burnouf, and Kern. These separate edicts are not found among the fourteen, but they are of similar style and spirit. Two of them have the dis tinction of being dated thus : " 256 [years have elapsed] since the departure of the Teacher," i.e., since the death of Buddha, the time of which has been variously assigned to 544 and 478 B.C. In these two edicts Asoka, after stating that he had been " a hearer of the law " more than thirty-two years and a half, adds, " I did not exert myself strenuously. But it is a year and more that I have entered the community of [ascetics]." The pillars erected .by Asoka would appear to have been numerous, but only a few now remain. Six of these, at Delhi (2), Allahabad, Lauriya (2), and Sanchi, are inscribed. Five of them present in a slightly variant form the text of a series of six edicts that were promulgated by Asoka in the twenty-seventh year of his reign, 236 B.C. These pillar inscriptions, which are beautifully cut, are not repetitions of those on the rocks, but they are of similar purport. The pillars at Delhi and Allahabad have since been covered, wherever space was left, and even between the lines of Asoka s inscription, with records and scribblings of later dates. The only one of consequence is the inscription of Samudra-gupta on the Allahabad pillar. The " iron pillar " of Delhi belongs to a later age, and its inscription is dated 1052 A.D. In immediate succession to the rock and pillar inscrip tions of Asoka come the inscriptions of the caves and rock- cut temples. There are caves in Bihar, Cuttack, and elsewhere with inscriptions showing that they were con structed by Piyadasi or Asoka. Soon after these, about the 2d century A.D., come the caves at Khandagiri in Cuttack, over which there is an important but much defaced inscription. It records the construction of the caves by a king Aira of Kalinga, a convert from Brahman- ism to Buddhism, and it gives glimpses of his religious and beneficent life that make its defacement a matter of especial regret. 1 The letters of the inscriptions in the oldest caves show a slight departure from the forms of the Lat alphabet, and would seem to have been written from about the beginning of the Christian era to the 5th cen tury. The caves at Ajanta, Karlen, Kanhari, Nasik, and Junir are Buddhist, and contain many inscriptions, but most of these records are of no historical value, as they simply commemorate the dedication of a cave, chamber, cistern, or some other votive gift, coupled with the name of the donor. The same observation applies generally to 1 Babii Raj end ra Lai in vol. ii. of his Antiquities of Orissa, just pub lished, has proposed some emendations of a few lines of Prinsep s ver sion, but the rock is now in a worse condition than it was in Prinsep s time, and a full translation is hopeless.