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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[SEPTEMBER, 1876.
gat
there can be no doubt, since the legend says Buddhaghosh a commends the sacred writthat the Bodhisattva, the future Buddha, ings for their prolixity, so Asoka informs us left heaven to bring happiness to men, and that he has intentionally repeated some things entered his mother's womb as a white elephant. on account of their sweetness, in order to imThus we read in the Lalitavistára, 63:
press them favourably upon the people, and - Pushyanakshatrayoge Bodhisattvas Tushita- cause them to meet with the greater accept
varabhavanâch chyutvå smritah samprajanan auce. pând uragajarúpo bhûtva, jananya dakshina- 1 In making these remarks on a certain littleyâṁ kakshåv avâkrâmata."
ness in his style we have no intention of being With regard to sarvalokasukhdhari, we may unjust to the memory of a good prince. The compare the gátla at Lalitavistára 111, in which following pages will afford proofs that we do allusion is made to the happiness which the birth justice to the king's noble aspirations, to his of Buddha was to bring into the world :- toleration, to his merits as a ruler. apâyåścha yatha śântâh sukhi sarvam yatha ja- All the discovered inscriptions of the king of
Magadh a fully merit, on more than one acdhruvam Sukhåvaho jatah sukhe sthapayitá ja- count, the attention of every Indian scholar, gat |
though the text of most of them is in such a Even if the signature is not to be attributed condition that I have hitherto not ventured to to the scribe, the custom evidently even then undertake a reproduction of all. I shall thereprevalent, and still in use at the present day, of fore confine myself to such as are in great mea. naming at the end of the inscription the di- sure, or in essentials, intelligible. I will begin vinity worshipped by the writer or scribe, can with two inscriptions in which the king speaks offer no serious difficulty. In the short inscrip- of his conversion, namely, Nos. IV. and VIII. tion No. XIV., which is neither more nor less of Girnar. than a postscript addressed to the reader, wo find Of No. IV. in the Girnar series there are three apologues which recur word for word in the post- versions :-one in the dialect of the country in script of modern manuscripts and even printed
which Girnar Jay, which dialect we may perbooks. When we read at the end of the Bombay haps venture to call Gujarati, or more geedition of the Mahabharata "asmin parvani nerally Marathi; the second in Magadh i slokavaishamyari lipikaraprama d adina at Dhaulî; the third in Aryan writing at bodhyam," we can almost fancy we have before Kapurdigiri, in the language of Northus A soka's warning against the negligence of Western India, or Gând hâra. The lanhis scribes, against lipikarapamado, as his own guage of the last-mentioned version is nearest words express it :--so tenacious is Indian tradi- to Sanskrit, inasmuch as it has retained tion! Later on we shall return to the postscript various conjunct consonants, such as pr, tr, &c., of the Girnar inscription. The ascription of as well as the three sorts of sibilants. Not much homage to the White Elephant-that is, further from the Sanskrit is the Girnâ r dialect, to the Buddha-corresponds to the Sri-Rámár- in which the groups st and 8t occur regularly. panam astu, and similar expressions, of the The Magadh i presents all the characteristics Indian MSS. of the present day.
of a fully developed Prâksit. This inscription Though the king's edicts, or rather written i was the last dealt with by Burnouf, and the addresses to his subjects, contain nothing wbich most carefully analysed by him (Lotus de la Bome could give offence to the adherents of other forms Loi, pp. 730 ff.). He has taken the text of of belief, they are nevertheless more or less Girnar as his basis, and rightly so, because it Buddhistic in their style. They are composed has suffered least, and has been most carefully in a preaching tone, full of repetitions. Just as written and revised. It runs as follows: 1 Atikatan antaran bahani vasasatáni vachito éva pânárambho vihinsacha bhatanam fiâtisu * asarpatipati bamhanasamananam asampatîpati; ta aja Devanampiyasa Piyadasino raño
The two first were published by Prinsep in the Jour. As. Soc. Beny. vol. VII. p. 236; a facsímile of the Dhaull series faces p. 184. A revised copy of the Girndr Series by Wes
tergaard and Gen. Jacob will be found in the Jout. R. As. Soc. vol. XII. opposite p. 153, also a facsimile by Masson of the text of Kapurdigirl.
