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146 ASOKA MAURYA records, and other matter; but all, even the most con- cise, have interest and value. The area covered by the inscriptions comprises nearly the whole of India, and extends from the Him- alaya to Mysore, and from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. The documents are all written in various forms of Prakrit, that is to say, vernacular dialects closely allied both to literary Sanskrit and to the Pali of the Cey- lonese Buddhist books, but not identical with either. They were, therefore, obviously intended to be read and understood by the public generally, and their existence presupposes a fairly general knowledge of the art of writing. The inscriptions designed for public instruc- tion were placed either in suitable positions on high- roads or at frequented places of pilgrimage where their contents were ensured the greatest possible publicity. Two recensions of the Fourteen Rock Edicts, in- scribed on rocks at places near the northwestern fron- tier of India, were executed in the script locally current, now generally known to scholars as the Kharoshthi, which is a modified form of an ancient Aramaic alpha- bet, written from right to left, introduced into the Pan- jab during the period of Persian domination in the fifth and fourth centuries B. c. All the other inscriptions are incised in one or other variety of the early Brahmi alphabet, from which the Devanagari and other forms of the modern script in Northern and Western India have been evolved, and which is read from left to right. The inscriptions readily fall into eight classes, which