Posted on: 6 December 2012

Digital Rare Book:
Inscriptions of Asoka
By Alexander Cunningham
Published by Office of Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta - 1877

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Image:
Paper impression of Edicts V-VI, Asoka Edict Pillar, Lauriya Araraj, Champaran District - 1885

Photograph of a paper impression of the inscriptions, Edicts V-VI, on the Asokan Edict Pillar at Lauriya Araraj, Champaran District, taken by Henry Baily Wade Garrick in the 1880s. Ashoka (reign ca. 272-231 BC) was the most illustrious king of the Maurya dynasty. After his conquest of the kingdom of Kalinga in modern day Orissa, struck with remorse at the suffering he caused, Ashoka converted to Buddhism and spent the rest of his life propagating his dharma (law). In order to achieve this, he had numerous edicts inscribed on rocks, pillars and caves throughout his vast empire. These are written in various vernaculars and represent the earliest written document from the Indic regions. From these edicts it would appear clear that Ashoka was an extremely tolerant and benevolent monarch. It was originally thought that Ashoka was the first to erect pillars, however recent interpretations have shown that it is more likely that the edicts were inscribed on pillars that had been sculpted in the preceding centuries, and already had religious connotations. The pillars were imbued with cosmological significance; it symbolised the world's axis, the separation between earth and heaven. The pillar at Lauriya Araraj consists of a polished sandstone shaft which has lost its capital. The first six of the pillar edicts of Ashoka are clearly engraved on the east and west of the shaft.

Copyright © The British Library Board


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So beautiful!Thank you!

What script is that, it has lot of Dravidian language word (like from kannada)...

Nice info....many thanks

Arvind must be Pali script

Asoka's inscriptions are made in the script called Brahmi, and almost all scripts used in India are derived from it, both from the north and south. To see how they all developed, I recommend the book "Indian Palaeography" by Ahmad Hasan Dani, published by Munshiram Manoharlal.

Arvind Mallaya, this is a form of Bramhi, the mother script of all Indian language, including Kannada and tamil.

Hi Ray of sunshine Kiran :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C4%81hm%C4%AB_script

I have a question. I see lot of difference in four south states scripts and northern states script.How can Brahmi be common script to both?

nice

Kiran Tripathi >> Check wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br%C4%81hm%C4%AB_script What is not mainstream, but is gradually being understood anyway despite "scholarly" opposition -- is that Bramhi itself derived from the Proto-Bramhi of the Sindu Saraswati civilization phase. So the script has a unbroken history for about 7000 years now. Much like rest of India.

One of the major Ashoka edict is engraved in Kharosthi script (written from right to left, whereas Brahmi is written left to right). James Prinsep (~1834) studied the bilingual Greek / Kharosthi coins of the Indo-Greek Kings and was able to decipher Kharosthi and (later?) Brahmi. J Prinsep's articles appeared in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in that era and he was the JASB editor as well.

JOin ............. https://www.facebook.com/groups/savebuddhistcaves/?fref=ts

Kiran Tripathi.... if you actually start to learn these scripts you will find a lot of similarities with their North Indian counterparts. As it happened with me. I could guess the sound after seeing them. Off course the languages of this region have a lot of new words, usually not available in the North, but they also use unusual Sanskrit words, not generally used in North India. But let me tell you those are words often used in Sanskrit classics. And often used in South East Asia too. This is also a personal experience.Now many scholars do believe that this Aryan-Dravidian linguistic divide was the creation of Colonial Orientalists. In reality it never existed! Pretty interesting indeed!