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No. 22.)
THE SIDDAPURA EDICTS OF ASOKA.
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has been preached :-“Both small men and great men shall exert themselves to this (ond),”[8] and even my neighbours [9] shall know it, and this exertion shall be of long duration. And this matter will grow, and it will even grow largely, at the least it will grow one size and a half. And this sermon has been preached by the Departed, 256 [10] (years ago)."
Second Edict. "Even thus [11] speaks the Beloved of the gods - Obedience should be rendered to mother and father. Moreover, the respect for living creatures should be made firm,[12] the truth should be spoken. Even those virtues prescribed by the sacred law should be practised. Moreover, the pupil should honour his teacher, and towards blood-relations one shonld indeed [13] behave as is due to them. This is the ancient standard (of virtuous conduct), [14] this condaces to long life,[15] and this should thus be performed." Written by Pada the scribe.
REMARKS. 1. Possibly the termination te (tas) has here the sense of the locative, in accordance with the maxim of the Sanskřit grammarians, declaring the affix tasi may serve to express any caserelation. If so, the translation has to be altered slightly. In addition to the parallel passages mentioned by Mr. Rice and M. Senart, the second line of the Nasik inscription No. XI. B (Rep. Arch. Suru. West. India, p. 106) ought to be compared, where we read :-raño Gotam putasa Sdtakanisa mahadeviya cha jîvasutaya rdjamatuya vachanena Govadhane Samako droga vatavo tato eva vataro. Regarding the meaning of ayaputa see the introductory remarks.
2. The second version has : - "The Beloved of the gods speaks thus." 3. Adhatiya is, in Sanskrit, not ardhatsitiya, as Mr. Childers asserts, but ardhatraya.
4. Savachhara or samvachhara would have to be translated by a year,' but for the varia lectiones of Sahasram, - sadvachhale (formerly misread savinchhale), and of Râpnåth, chhavachhare, which both correspond to the Sanskřit shadvatsaram. Instead of sad (compare also sad uvisati, Pillar-Edicts I-VI.), sa or sam may, of course, be used, the following consonant being doubled; compare sapanala in the Sahasråm Edict, and d-san-másike, Pillar-Edict V.
5. Upayîte, upayite, or up.te, i.e. upélaḥ, is the reading of all the versions. Up. te is plain in the facsimile of the Rûpnåth version, where formerly I read wrongly papite. As Asoka contrasts here the period. yani maya samghe upayite with that when he was updsake, 'a lsy. worshipper,' it appears that the phrase means that he had entered the Samgha, and had become, at least nominally, a monk; compare the Sanskrit phrases yajñam, uratam, or brahmacharyam upa-i. The Sanskrit translation of the passage is: yan mayd sangha upêtó badhan cha mayd prakrantam. The prothesis of y in yita for fta, i.e. ita, may be compared with that of v before w in vuchchati, uutta (upta), and so forth. It is common before é in Marathi words, e.g. yek for éka, yêranda for êranda, etc.
6. I do not think it either permissible or necessary to change, as M. Senart does, the word devehi, which occurs in two versions; for the passage gives a good sense if devehi is taken as equivalent to devaik saha, as certainly may be done. With this explanation, the transliteration into Sanskrit would be: Etêna tu kalêná mrisha santô manushya msisha [krital] dêvaih (saha). The general meaning is that those men who were considered to be true, i.e. true propheta and instructors, like the ascetics and Brâhmanas teaching the Vaishnavas, Saivas, and other sects, were deprived of their high position by the efforts of Asoka and lost the confidence of the people, and that their gods fell with them. The Rûpnåth Ediot says, 1. 2 :-Yi imdya kaldya Janbudipasi amisd devd husu te dani masa kata, and distinctly assorts the overthrow of the Brâhmaṇical deities. Here we have the very natural assertion that the prophets and teachers fell in the estimation of the people together with their gods. The question whether the Sahasrâm
