North Indian Inscriptions

THE SIDDAPURA EDICTS OF ASOKA.

the word mahâtpa, and perhaps the frequent change of the dental na of suffixes to na. e.g. is devâṇaṁ, mahâmâtâṇaṁ, pakamâmiṇeṇa, sâvaṇe. The mixing of the two dialects is probably due to the fact that the edicts were drafted in an office where a royal prince and high officials from Magadha presided over a number of subordinates who were natives of the South. The fact that Paḍa uses in No. I. (l. 9) sachaṁ, and in the corresponding passage of No. II. (l. 17) śachaṁ, in my opinion conveys the lesson that in Aśôka’s times, just as now, most, if not all, Prâkṛit dialects possessed two sibilants, which the uneducated and the half-educated classes, to which latter the professional writers belonged and still belong, used promiscuously in the same words. The vacillation is just the same as when the inhabitants of Gujarât say in one sentence ê śuṁ kahê chhê (“what does he say ?”), and in the next tamê suṁ kahyuṁ (“what did you say ?”). Similar instances of laxness in the use of the palatal and dental sibilants may be observed in most parts of India, and this laxness is at the bottom of the frequent interchange of the signs for the sibilants in some versions of Aśôka’s Edicts, where, of course, sha and śa must both be taken to mark the palatal sibilant.

......The dictionary of the Aśôka inscriptions receives quite a number of additions through the second part of these inscriptions and through the sentence which serves as introduction to both. It must be noted that the introduction certainly did not come from the Imperial Secretariat at Pâṭaliputra. It is just possible that the second portion, too, which as yet has not been discovered elsewhere, may have been drafted at Suvaṁṇagiri and may furnish the Ayaputa’s view of the essentials of Aśôka’s Dhaṁma. The difference in the origin would naturally account for the difference in the language.

......Irrespective of the fact that the Śiddâpura inscriptions with their summary of the well-known Dhaṁma make the position of those more difficult, who contend that Aśôka-Priyadarśin is not the author of the New Edicts,― their great value lies therein that they prove a portion of the Dekhan table-land to have belonged to the Maurya emperor. This has been generally recognised. But I must repeat what I have already stated in the Vienna Oriental Journal, viz. that this news did not come quite unexpectedly to me. Ever since the late Dr. Bhagvânlâl found a piece of the eighth Rock-Edict near Supârâ in the Ṭhânâ collectorate, I felt convinced that the Mauryas had held the whole of Gujarât and of the Koṅkan. The former province must, of course, have been conquered, if its southern continuation was subject to the ruler of Pâtaliputra. And to the conquest of the whole Koṅkan by the Mauryas points the fact that, in the 7th century A.D., Pulikêśin II. found there Maurya chieftains or kings whom he ejected or subjected. As the ancient Maurya emperors sent their sons as viceroys into the provinces, it might easily happen that, on the overthrow of the central government, one or the other of the princes, serving in the remoter districts, managed to save something out of the wreck and continued the name of the dynasty in an out-of-the-way place. It is in this way, I think, that we have to explain the existence of Maurya rulers in the Koṅkaṇ and in Râjputânâ during the 7th and later centuries. Finally, the occupation of portions of the Dekhan seemed probable to me partly on account of the Buddhist legend of a mission to Mahishamaṇḍala or Mysore during Aśôka’s reign, and partly on account of the frequent occurrence of the family name Môrê, i.e. Maurya, among the peasants, landholders and other inhabitants of various portions of the Dekhan,¹ which circumstance, it seems to me, must be explained in the same manner as the survival of the names Chalkȇ or Shelkê, i.e. Chalukya ; Shendȇ, i.e. Sinda or Sȇndraka ; Sêlâr, i.e. Śilahâra ; and so forth. Mr. Rice’s important discovery has now made all speculation unnecessary. But these points deserve mention as corroborative evidence, especially for Mr. Rice’s view that Aśôka had direct control near the Mysore territory. This is also suggested by some other considerations.
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......1 See the Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XVIII. pp. 285 and 325 ; Vol.. XIX. p. 75 ; Vol. XXI. p. 110. In the passage it is asserted that the Mauryas once ruled in the Dekhan.