Epigraphia Indica Vol 03

SR No.: 032557
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1894
Total Pages: 472
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 25 MB

Page 173

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EPIGRAPHIA INDICA.
(VOL. III.
the word mahatpa, and perhaps the frequent change of the dental na of suffixes to na, e. g. in devdman, mahámdtánan, pakamaminena, sávane. 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 Pada uses in No. I. (1.9) sachan, and in the corresponding passage of No. II. (1. 17) Sachan, in my opinion conveys the lesson that in Asoka's times, just as now, most, if not all, Prakrit 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 Gujarat say in one sentence é som kahé chhe (“what does he say?"), and in the next tamê sum kahyun (" what did you say P"). 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 Asoka's Edicts, where, of course, sha and sa must both be taken to mark the palatal sibilant.
The dictionary of the Aska 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 Pataliputra. It is just possible that the second portion, too, which as yet has not been discovered elsewhere, may have been drafted at Suvamnagiri and may furnish the Ayapata's view of the essentials of Asoka's Dhanma. The difference in the origin would naturally account for the difference in the language.
Irrespective of the fact that the Biddåpara inscriptions with their summary of the well-known Dhamma make the position of those more difficult, who contend that AsokaPriyadarsin is not the author of the New Edicts, their great value lies therein that they prove a portion of the Dekhen 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, vix, that this news did not come quite unexpectedly to me. Ever since the late Dr. Bhagvanlal found a piece of the eighth Rock-Edict near Supårå in the Thânâ collectorate, I felt convinced that the Mauryas had held the whole of Gujarat and of the Konkan. The former province must, of course, have been conquered, if its southern continuation was subject to the rulor of Patalipatra. And to the conquest of the whole Konkan by the Mauryas points the fact that, in the 7th century A.D., Pulikesin 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 Konkan and in Rajputând during the 7th and later contaries. Finally, the occupation of portions of the Dekhan seemed probable to me partly on account of the Buddhist legend of a mission to Mahishamandala or Mysore during Asöka's reign, and partly on account of the frequent occurrence of the family name Môre, i.e. Maurya, among the peasants, landholders and other inhabitants of various portions of the Dekhan, which circumstance, it seems to me, must be explained in the same manner as the survival of the names Chalke or Shelkê, i.e. Chalukya ; Shende, i.e. Sinda or Sendraka; Selår, i.e. Silahåra; 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 Asoka had direct control over the Mysore territory. This is also suggested by some other considerations.
See the Bombay Gazetteer, Vol. XVIII. PP. 285 and 925; Vol. XIX. p. 76; Vol. XXI. p. 110. In the fecond pamango it is swerted that the Mauryas once ruled in the Dekhan.