Epigraphia Indica Vol 34

Author(s): D C Sircar
Publisher: Archaeological Survey of India

Page 18

EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
1961-1962
VOL. XXXIV
No. 1-GRAECO-ARAMAIC INSCRIPTION OF ASOKA NEAR KANDAHAR
(2 Plates) J. FILLIOZAT, PARIS
(Received on 4.5.1959) The inscription under study was discovered at Shar-1-Kuna in April 1958 by Mr. Abdul Bay Ashna, Headmaster of a school at Kandahar in Afghanistan. It was immediately notified, through the Afghan authorities, to the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan and to the Kabul Museum. A few days later, Dr. U. Scerrato of the Museum and Mr. J. M. Casal of the Delegation took estampages of the inscription independently. The importance of the epigraph, which is well engraved and is in a satisfactory state of preservation, was at once realised as it is bilingual, written in Greek and Aramaic. The second line of the Greek text was found to begin with the royal name Piodasses, easily recognised as the Greek transcription of Piyadasi. The Italian and French opigraphists were soon at work on the record and, after preliminary notices in the newspapers, the discovery of the new epigraph of Asoka Piyadasi was announced to the scientific world on the 20th June by Prof. Louis Robert in a communication to the French Académie des Inscriptions. It was also noticed in an article (in English) by Dr. Scerrato in the East and West, Rome, Vol. IX, Parts 1-2, March-June 1958, pp. 4-6, with illustrations. The inscription has since been published with text and translation simultaneously in Italian in the Serie Orientale Roma, Vol. XXI, and in French in the Journal Asiatique. Prof. E. Lamotte of Leuven also published his own commentary in the Addenda to his great work on the history of Buddhism just ready to issue from the press at that time.
The discovery was not an unexpected one. As Dr. Scerrato points out, Alfred Foucher, in 1942, emphasized how strange the absence of any Greek inscription was in a region like ancient Gandhāra, where Greek culture is so strongly witnessed by many evidences. Since the publication of Foucher's work, several fragmentary inscriptions in Greek characters have, indeed, been discovered in the excavations at Surkh Kotal in Bactria ; but, with the exception of one broken line
[We are indebted to the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan for the illustrations excepting the eye-copy of the Greek inscription. Maoron over e ando has not been used in this article in Sanskritic oxpressions.-Ed.
Un Editto Bilingue Greco-Aramaico di Asoka : La prima iscrizione Greca Scoperta in Afghanistan, Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, Rome, 1958, 35 pages with 2 Platos (introduction by Dr. U. Scerrato; preface by Prof. G. Tucci; transcript, translation and notes by Prof. G. Pugliese Carratelli for the Grook text, and by Prof, G. Levi della Vida for the Aramaic text).
Une bilinque gréco-araméenne d'Asoka' in Journ, A8., 1968, No. 1, pp. 1-48, with 8 Plates (introduction and odition of the Greek version by Prof. Daniel Schlumberger; observations on the Greek inscription by Prof. L. Robert; edition of the Aramsic inscription by Prof. A. Dupont-Sommer; the Iranian data hy Prof E. Benvenisto).
• Histoire du bouddhiamo indien : Des origines à l'ère saka, Bibl. Muséon, Vol. 43, Louvain, 1958, pp. 789-08 . Un Editto Bilingue, etc., p. 2. • La vieille route de l'Inde de Bactru d Tosila, Mém. Deleg. franc, on Afghanistan, 1, 2, Paris, 1942, p. 385.