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CAILLAT : “ Double Optative Suffix " in Prakrit
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of power which is implicit and often explicit in the message of the almighty emperor.6 Ù. Schneider also insists on the threatening tone of Asoka's message here and elsewhere ( 150 ).
But it has just been seen that the immediate context of XIII (N), both the preceding and the following sentences, are conciliatory and persuasive, as the king invites the ațavis to instruction, to reflexion and voluntary amendment ( anuneti + anunij(h )apeti, XIII M). Obviously, the sovereign wishes on the one hand to inspire confidence (compare his words in Sep I and II ), and, on the other hand, to obtain the voluntary, the true conversion of the jungle people to the principle which he defines (XIII (O), supra ), and to the practice of dharma. In other words, he wants to make the demonstration of the dharmavijaya - a “victory” which can result only from the inner conviction of the antagonist - as in the case of the foreigners who reign far away, against whom he has never waged war, whom he does not even envisage to kill ( Sep II ).
Given this situation, perhaps the grammatical status of Sh hamñeyasu, Er (Ka) hamneyu needs further investigation. Could Bloch, a sensitive translator, have been guided by his subtle linguistic feeling? For it is well known that 1 ) the MIA passive of HAN is not always the form inherited directly from OIA HANyal te ); 2) the MIA optative of this verb shows several variants: (i) the direct reflex of OIA hanyāt (Amg haniyā ), (ii) the common MIA, Pa hane( yya ), Amg hane( jja), (iii) the “mixed " Pa haññe, BHS hamyye (Patna Dhp), hannye (Subasi Dhp).
The question raised in the present paper, therefore, is the following: are the Asokan optatives hamñeyasu ~ hamneyu passive forms? or could they be active, that is the exact pl. counterpart of Pa haññe? It will be clear that there can be no grammatical objection to the second solution.
Unfortunately the Greek rendering of this part of RE XII-XIII is not known. As for the Indian versions, almost all are completely damaged, except to some extent for Er where scholars decipher ha[m]neyu.? The same
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G. Fussman, “Pouvoir central et régions dans l'Inde ancienne : le problème de 1'empire maurya ", in Annales 1982 N° 4, 621-647. It is emphasised (p. 627); "la seule traduction tenant compte de la grammaire est "afin qu'ils se repentent et ne soient plus tués" // En d'autres termes, les ordres du roi doivent s'appliquer partout, même chez les populations qui vivent en marge, sous peine de répression violente...". Cf. U.S. 's ed., and, recently, Ulrike Niklas, Die Editionen der A soka-Inschriften von Erragudi, Bonn 1990 (Schriftenreihe des Caulfeild-Meisezahl Instituts für Hochasienforschung 1 ), 138-141.
