Collection of Prakrit and Sanskrit Inscriptions

Author(s): P Piterson
Publisher: Bhavnagar Archiological Department

Page 14

being our own Dr. G. Bühler. Although isolated difficulties remain, some of them perhaps for ever insoluble, the meaning of these inscriptions as a whole has been by the labours of these men definitively dragged out of the gloom of centuries which had threatened to engulf it finally,
Of the contents of the inscriptions it is not here necessary to speak at any length. They lie before the student both in the Sanskrit version, which he owes, as liere presenteil, to the veteran Guttalalji, and in the English version. The monarch from whom they issued calls himself throughout them by no other title than the - Beloved of the Gods." But by the help of Ceylon records he has been identified with that Asoka, grandson of Chandragupta (the Greek Sandracottus), whose conversion, about 244 B.C., to Buddhism did for that creed in India what the conversion of Constantine did for the cause of Christianity in the West, and whose royal son and daughter, forsaking throne and sceptre, founded the Buddhism of Ceylon and Ul its many offshoots. In these his cdicts, which he set up in various places throughout a dominion in India as wide as the English rule, this great spirit left a memorial of himself which will now never again be lost. " Asoka"--I quote Professor Dowson, who has rendered distinguished services in connection with these inscriptions," was & convert to Buddhism, but his cdicts bear few distinctive marks of that or any formal religion, and they are entirely free from vaunts of his power and dignity. They inculcate a life of morality and temperance, a practical religion, not one of rights and ceremonies. They proscribe the slaughter of animals, and they enjoin obedience to parents; affection for children, friends, and dependants ; reverence for elders, Buddhist devotees, and Brahmins; universal benevolence; and unreserved toleration. They would seem tu liave been set up at a time when there were few differences between Buddhists and Brahmins, and their apparent object was to unite the people in a bond of peace by a religion of morality and charity free from dogma and ritual." Prinsep notes with astonishnient the loving care for animals which the good king inculcated. “The edict relates to the establishunent of a system of me licul administration throughout the dominions of the supreme sovereign of India, ono at which we may sinile in the present day, for it includes both man anil beast, but this we know to be in accordance with the fastidions humanity of the Buddhist creed, and we must
Ahol Shrutgyanam