Ashokan edicts

Also called: Ashokan inscriptions, Asokan edicts, Rock edicts · Topic: The Mauryan Empire · NCERT: Class 7, Ch 5 "The Rise of Empires"; Class 12, Ch 2 "Kings, Farmers and Towns"

Meaning

The Ashokan edicts are messages from the Mauryan emperor Ashoka to his subjects and officials. They were carved on natural rocks and on stone pillars across the subcontinent, mostly in the Prakrit language and the Brahmi script. In them the king calls himself "Piyadassi", and they announce his dhamma (a set of moral rules for everyone, whatever their religion) and his orders to officials.

They are seen as the most valuable source for Mauryan history. They are the king's own words, from his own time, and stone does not rot the way palm-leaf manuscripts do.

Explanation

Background: why a king spoke through stone

• Ashoka ruled roughly c. 265–238 BCE [3].
• He was the first ruler to inscribe messages to his subjects and officials on stone. No earlier ruler spoke to the people in this way.
• The empire was huge, and people in different regions spoke different languages. A message carved on stone in a public place could reach people far from the capital.
• Inscriptions vs other Mauryan sources. Every other source has a gap:
• Megasthenes' Indica is lost. Only pieces survive, quoted by later Greek writers [5].
• The Arthashastra is a manual of theory. It says what a king should do, not what he did [6].
• Buddhist, Jaina and Puranic texts were written long after the Mauryas fell, and each one shapes the story to fit its own faith.
• The edicts alone are first-hand and from Ashoka's own time.

Main features

• Two kinds of surface. The edicts were cut on natural rocks (rock edicts) and on polished stone pillars (pillar edicts).
• Language and script matched the local people:
• Most edicts: Prakrit language in Brahmi script.
• North-west India: some in Kharosthi script.

• Afghanistan: in Aramaic and Greek, the languages people there actually used.

• Why Prakrit? It was the popular language, the everyday speech of ordinary people, not the language of priests and scholars.

• Why Brahmi matters: it was a fully formed script by the 3rd century BCE, and its most famous use is on Ashoka's rock edicts [7]. It is the mother of all regional Indian scripts, including Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil and Telugu.
• Content: dhamma (respect elders, be kind to slaves and servants, respect other beliefs), orders to officials, and Ashoka's own account of events such as the Kalinga war.
• The king's name: most edicts name "Piyadassi" ("pleasant to behold"), which is a title, not a birth name. Only a few also use the name Asoka.

How the edicts were read again: decipherment

For centuries nobody in India or Europe could read these stones, because the scripts had been forgotten.

• James Prinsep, an East India Company mint officer, deciphered Brahmi in 1838 and Kharosthi in the 1830s [2].
• Britannica calls him the first European scholar to read Ashoka's edicts, with the work done across 1837–1838 [2][3]. For the exam, take 1838 as the answer.
• How Brahmi was cracked:
• Scholars worked backwards from Bengali and Devanagari manuscripts, comparing later letter shapes with older ones.
• At first they wrongly assumed the language was Sanskrit.

• Once they saw it was Prakrit, the letters fell into place.

• How Kharosthi was cracked:

• Through Indo-Greek coins, which gave a king's name in Greek and Kharosthi side by side (for example, Apollodotus).

• A name that could already be read in Greek gave the sound of each Kharosthi letter.

• One king, not many. Epigraphists (scholars who study inscriptions) decided that one ruler issued all the edicts. They based this on four matching features:

• content: the same ideas and orders repeat;
• style: the same way of addressing people;
• language: the same Prakrit;
• palaeography: the same letter shapes (palaeography is the study of how letter forms change over time).

Results and limits

• Result: before decipherment, Ashoka was almost unknown outside the Buddhist chronicles of Sri Lanka and northern Buddhist writings [3]. Once the edicts could be read, a legend became a documented emperor.
• Limits. The edicts are the best source, but they still have to be questioned:
• One point of view. They give the king's version of events.
• Grand events only. Wars and royal orders were carved. What a farmer ate was not.
• Claims need testing. Ashoka says earlier rulers had no arrangements for reporting news to the king. That may just be a new ruler talking down earlier ones.
• Only a fraction survives. Stone cracks, letters wear away, and pillars fall or get reused.
• Most people could not read. Someone had to read the edict aloud, and the listeners had to understand it.

• Limited reach of language. The Prakrit of Pataliputra may not have been understood in far corners of the empire.

• The missing Kalinga edict:

• The edict where Ashoka expresses anguish over the Kalinga war is absent in conquered Odisha itself, the very land he says he felt sorry for.
• Other edicts were put up there instead.
• Lesson: Ashoka showed remorse to faraway audiences and authority to the people he had just defeated. What is missing from a site is also evidence.

Time, place and evidence

• Period: Mauryan Empire, during Ashoka's reign, roughly c. 265–238 BCE [3].
• Ruler: Ashoka, the Mauryan emperor, who calls himself "Piyadassi" in the edicts.
• Spread: across the subcontinent, from Afghanistan (Aramaic and Greek edicts) and the north-west (Kharosthi) to the rest of India (Prakrit in Brahmi).
• A named site: the Ashokan rock edicts at Junagadh (Girnar), Gujarat, protected by the Archaeological Survey of India [4].
• Key person in their rediscovery: James Prinsep (born 20 August 1799, Essex, England; died 22 April 1840, London), East India Company mint officer [2].
• How we know:
• the inscriptions themselves on rocks and pillars;
• Indo-Greek bilingual coins (the key to Kharosthi);
• the Buddhist chronicles of Sri Lanka (the main earlier source on Ashoka) [3];
• comparison with other Mauryan sources: Megasthenes' fragments [5], the Arthashastra [6] and the Sohagaura copper plate.

Don't confuse with

• Sohagaura copper plate: found at Sohgaura, Uttar Pradesh. It is also in Prakrit and Brahmi, but it is on copper, not stone. It is linked to Chandragupta, not Ashoka, and it records a granary against famine, not dhamma.
• Megasthenes' Indica: a Greek visitor's account from Chandragupta's court. The original is lost and survives only second-hand [5]. The edicts are the king's own first-hand words.
• The Arthashastra: a manual of theory on statecraft, partly attributed to Kautilya/Chanakya [6]. It says what a ruler should do, while the edicts record what Ashoka announced.
• Brahmi vs Kharosthi: most edicts use Brahmi, the mother of Indian scripts. Kharosthi appears only in the north-west, and it was cracked through Indo-Greek coins, not by working back from Bengali and Devanagari.

Prelims Hooks

• James Prinsep, an East India Company mint officer, deciphered Brahmi in 1838 and Kharosthi in the 1830s [2].
• Edict language and script: Prakrit in Brahmi (most); Kharosthi (north-west); Aramaic and Greek (Afghanistan).
• "Piyadassi" means "pleasant to behold". Only a few edicts also use the name Asoka.
• Kharosthi was cracked with Indo-Greek bilingual coins (Greek + Kharosthi), for example those of Apollodotus.
• Ashokan rock edicts at Junagadh (Girnar) are in Gujarat, an ASI-protected site [4].
• Trap: before decipherment, Ashoka was known almost only from the Buddhist chronicles of Sri Lanka, not from the edicts [3].

Mains Points

• The edicts are the best Mauryan source, so they must be cross-checked:
• Megasthenes survives only in fragments [5]. The Arthashastra states ideal policy [6]. Buddhist, Jaina and Puranic texts are later and shaped by faith.

• Only the edicts are contemporary and first-hand. Even so, they carry the king's point of view, and they record grand events, not daily life.

• The edicts were a tool of rule, not just a confession:

• The Kalinga-remorse edict is missing in conquered Odisha.
• Ashoka showed remorse to distant subjects and authority to the newly conquered.

• Writing in Prakrit, Kharosthi, Aramaic and Greek shows an administration that shaped its message for each region, even though most people who walked past could not read.

• Decipherment is itself a historical event:

• Prinsep's 1838 reading of Brahmi [2][3] turned a Buddhist legend into a documented emperor.
• It also shows how a wrong assumption blocks knowledge. Scholars looked for Sanskrit and found nothing until they accepted that the language was Prakrit.

Related concepts

• Piyadassi
• Kandahar bilingual inscription
• Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra edicts
• Maski edict
• Girnar rock edict
• R. Shamasastry
• Sohgaura copper plate
• Mahasthan inscription

Read more

• How we know: sources for Mauryan history