________________
NOTES ON ASOKA'S SEVENTH AND NINTH ROCK EDICTS
is likely that the text issued from the king's capital, on which the four different versions were based, contained these two cases of misspellings, viz. pavasati and akalika. But while the former was corrected in all versions except the the one at Kälsī, the latter was retained in all the four versions, possibly because the word was understood to mean 'not restricted, to time.' It is true that in the case of akalika for alokika, besides the transposition of the letters 'k' and 'l', we also need one more horizontal mark to the left for the vowel 'o'. But such minor errors regarding vowel marks are not uncommon in the Aśokan inscriptions.
Jain Education International
585
In the end one minor correction to the translation of Hultzsch may be suggested. In the last section (N), Hultzsch takes ubhayesam to refer to the two kinds of results, viz. the attainment of one's object (atham) in this world and endless merit (anamtam punā) in the next. Perhaps it would be better to take ubhayesarh as referring to both the worlds and translate: "But in case one obtains the object in this world, the gain of both (the worlds) arises from it....."
Madhu Vidya/317
For Private & Personal Use Only
www.jainelibrary.org
