Indian Antiquary Vol 18

SR No.: 032510
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: John Faithfull Fleet, Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 454
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 119

APRIL, 1889.)
THE INSCRIPTIONS OF PIYADASI.
107
effect that, by instructing themselves by these edicta, men will practise certain virtues, and will be happier and better. It appears to me that we shall easily arrive at this translation by taking apahatá as the participle absolute, for apahritya or even apahritvá (we might ventare to correct the reading to apaháti, cf. above I. 53, or even to apahatu). The meaning to carry off for one's own appropriation,' which apa-har exactly expresses, could, it appears to me, be applied without too great boldness in the king's ideas to the fact that passers-by might carry away in their memories some scraps of his exhortations, and would improve in such and such & way. The distributive idiom tan-tari will be noticed). In this manner the meaning appears to me to be much more natural.
3. To atha iyam corresponds exactly the Pali idiom yathayidah, which is also known in Buddhist Sanskrit. For the characters keimanikáni, it is unnecessary to have recourse to the really desperate correction kámakák. The conjunction káni is now familiar to us, and the next edict (1. 18) affords another instance of its association with an interrogative pronoun; kiman may remain. As observed on a former occasion (I. 18-19) we are authorised to understand it as kim , a common strongly interrogative formula. If we reject this reading, the only other alternative which I see, is to admit that kish, degraded to the role of a simple particle, has in some way doubled its final letter by the addition of a neuter adverbial termination, so that we obtain kimas, very much as the Pali has sudah for svida, i.e. svid. I must avow my preference for the former solution.
4. A comparison with the 12th (Rock) edict appears to me to fix the meaning of nikaya for the present passage, where it is, as in the other, closely connected with pasandu. Nikayas form the body of functionaries or royal officers over whom Piyadasi exercises a supervision, the personal character of which we have just seen the 4th (Columnar) edict emphasizing.
5. The 12th (Rock) edict again belps us to arrive at the exact meaning of this last phrase. The obscurity consists in the words atand pachupagamand, although the substantive pachupagamana does not lend itself to much uncertainty. It can hardly mean anything except the action of approaching with respect, and while we admit that prati adds a distributive or individual shade of meaning, it can easily be translated as personal adherence to. But what is the relation between the two words ? Dr. Kern transcribes the first word as atana and sees in it a genitive. In that case we should except alané, but if we pass over this difficulty, the translation which he proposee, my own belief' (mijne eigene belijdenis) supposes a very peculiar meaning for pachupagamana, which is a bold deviation from the etymological sense in a word for which we have no proof of any technical use. In the 12th (Rock) edict, we have a thought altogether analogous to the passage under review :-Piyadasi .... honours all sects .... by honours of different kinds. Then follows a sentence which the particle tu at first sight places in a certain antithesis to what precedes :-But less importance is attached to that than to the desire of seeing their essence (the virtues which constitute their essentials) reign. Now, here also, the particle chri gives a shade of antithesis to the second member of the sentence. If we take the form ataná as correct, and translate literally, we get, but it is the personal adherence (to the sects) which I consider as the essential requisite.' The deliberate personal adherence to the doctrines of the various religions is evidently the necessary condition of their sáravadhi, as the 12th edict expresses it. This explanation, therefore, without touching the text as handed down to us, leads us directly and without violence to a thought which makes a fitting supplement to the idea of the 12th edict. This consideration appears to me to be of such a nature as strongly to reconimend it, above all in a text which, like ours, is far from avoiding repetitions, as we shall be better able to judge in dealing with the 8th ediot.
TRANSLATION. Thus saith the King Piyadasi, dear unto the Dêvas :- In the thirteenth year after my coronation did I (for the first time) have edicts engraved for the welfare and happiness of the people. I trust that they will carry away something from them, and thus, in such and such