Epigraphia Indica Vol 33

SR No.: 032587
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: D C Sircar
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India
Publication Year: 1959
Total Pages: 514
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 29 MB

Page 462

No. 61] NOTE ON SHAR-I-KUNA INSCRIPTION OF ASOKA
337 The set of the Fourteen Rook Edicts could therefore have been engraved in Asöka's fourteenth regnal year at the earliest. Amongst the Six Pillar Edicts forming another set, it is known from Pillar Edicts I, IV, V and VI that the set was issued twentysix years after Asoka's coronation, i.e., in the twentyseventh regnal year. Pillar Edict VII added to the above set of six on the DelhiTopra pillar was caused to be written down in the following year and this particular set of Seven Pillar Edicts could not therefore have been engraved before Asoka's twentyeighth regnal year.
bere is a fairly long and rather inexplicable interval of more than a decade between the issue of Minor Rock Edicts I-II (thirteenth regnal year) and the set of the Rock Edicts (thirteenth and fourteenth regnal years) on the one hand and that of the Pillar Edicts (twentyseventh and twentyeighth regnal years) on the other. During this interval, Asoka may have been busy with his tours of pilgrimage and with the schism in the Buddhist Church, both referred to in some of his records.
The Shar-i-Kuna edict (very probably of the thirteenth regnal year) suggests that the hunters and fishermen in Asoka's service, who had originally been responsible for supplying animals and fish to the royal kitchen for the preparation of curries, gave up the practice of catching animals and fish under the king's orders. This reminds us of the fact that, according to Pillar Edict V, the emperor banned the slaughter of certain species of animals and fish totally and of all kinds of them on particular days of the month, in his twentyseventh regnal year (i..., twentysix years after coronation). The general prohibition therefore came after many years of intensive propaganda, even though Pillar Ediot VII says that, in the matter of the propagation of Dharma, Asöka consilered propaganda by far more effective than prohibition.