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340
THE ALPHABET
Two recensions of the so-called Fourteen Rock Edicts, inscribed on rocks at places near the north-western frontier of India, were written in the Kharoshthi script (see preceding chapter); all the other inscriptions (Fig. 156) extant are written in one or other variety of the early Maurya tyde of the Brahmi (Fig. 153, col. 1).
MINU LIESSTATGE SUL ELEANOR
//
LOUD VEES JSP48 MANO PRIKAsya de
120 115
Linds
REFFISKE GUERASTEAS BU BILLEDSLE XUA JULIEUTHIDE IN 67
Fig. 156-Asoka inscriptions 1, Inscription from Sarnath, Benares (from photograph in Mr. A. Master's possession). 2, Asoka inscription from South India
The local Brahmi varieties can be divided into a northern (Fig. 156, 1) and a southern group, the most southerly being the Siddapura inscriptions. Fig. 156, 2 reproduces one of the South Indian Asoka inscriptions published by Professor Turner (The Gavimath and Palkigundu Inscriptions of Asoka, "HYDERABAD ARCHAEOLOGICAL SERIES," No. 10, 1932).
