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ADMINISTRATION OF KALINGA
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effected by me (bandhana-mokhāni kațāni).” This would mean that every year there was such release effected. Asoka, however, does not inform us the occasion of these releases. Obviously, when he has stated the fact in his inscriptions, he must have kept a particular occasion in view. From the importance attached to the Tishyal and Punarvasu days, the first, eighth, fourteenth and fifteenth days of the Lunar half-month; the first full moon day in each of the threc season (in a year); the first half-month during the Indian Lent as well as to other auspicious days in the same way, it may be inferred that the general rules that guided Aśoka's actions were more or less the same as or similar to those met with in the Arthaśā:tra.
The idea of the State providing the helpless and the aged with maintenance, is not a new one and was known even before the time of Asoka. For instance, Kauțilya? says-“The king shall maintain the orphan, the aged, the infirm, the afflicted and the helpless." It is possible that this duty of the State upto Aśoka's time was observed more in the breach, and in order to renew the practice and ensure its continuance, Aśoka entrusted it to the Dharma-mahāmātras. And even if we suppose for a moment that this humanitarian measure was not, for the first time, devised by Asoka, it was no insignificant matter that he attempted to revive it, cnsure justice where it was set at naught and soften it with clemency where it was likely to hit severely.
1. Refer appendix to this chapter.
2. II, 36; K.P. Jayaswal (JHORS, Vol. IV, pp. 144 f) has explained anubandhas viz. grounds of relief. in the light of Smriti texts (Manu, VIII, 126; Gautama, XII, 51; Vašishtha, XIX, 91; Yājñavalkya, I, 367; also Arthaśāstrs, IV, 8).
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