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OCTOBER, 1889.]
THE INSCRIPTIONS OF PIYADASI.
305
o
of thinking,' desiring,' they will occupy themselves, such is my thought, such is my aim, in the interests of the sangha, &c.' With regard to this daty of surveillance over the clergy entrasted by the king to his officers, compare Girnar VI., 1. 7.8.
16. The letter which follows tê appears to have been still legible at the time when the first fac-simile was taken. At any rate we cannot hesitate to read, with it, té té, a distribu. tive repetition corresponding to têsu tésu, each mahámátra finding himself thus charged with some special sect (pativisithan). Moreover, a distinction is made between the mahámátras charged each with one of the particular sects who have just been mentioned, and the dhasimamahámátras to whom a general surveillance, both over these corporations and over all others, is entrusted.
17. I do not think that there can be any doubt as to the division of the words bahrká mukha. The figurative sense of mukha, means,' seems sufficient to warrant the only interpretation which is possible, that of agent,''intermediary.' We may, in a manner, compare the use of dvara (duvála) in the detached edicts of Dhauli, i. 3; ii. 2. These, with many others, are my agents. Their duties will be to distribute the alms which come from me and also those wbich come from the queens. As to what comes from the latter we have an express allusion to their intervention in the fragment of the Allahâbâd Edict. . 18. It is certain that we must complete to a[ka]lena. Tuthấyatanáni gives no admissible sense, and the word is certainly incorrect. I think that it is easy to suggest the remedy, and to read yatháyatanáni : for is a very easy correction. The verb is unfortunately incomplete, but whatever it was in its integrity, whether pativékhati, or patijagganti, or what not, there is no doubt about its general meaning. The officers put in charge by the king of the interior of his palace (cf. the fifth of the Fourteen Edicts) 'are each to supervise the rooms to which he is detailed.' Ayatana designates a portion of the orodhana, the inner apartments taken as a whole.
19. I confess that I have some difficulty in ascertaining the exact shade of meaning which separates ddlaka from dévikumára. The first designates, in general terms, the children' of the king. As for dê vikumára, as we have just above been dealing with the subject of the alms of the queens (dévínan cha), it is extremely probable that we should take the compound, not as a dvandva, but as a tatpurusha. On the other hand, if we translate literally, our children and the other princes, sons of the queens,' it will become necessary to admit that the dárakas form a special category among the devikumdras ; but this is just the opposite of what we should expect; the sons of the recognised queens should form a particular and privileged class amid the offspring of the king. I only see one way out of the difficulty,—to admit here for anya the same appositional use which we find in Greek (oi aido Eumpayou, the others, that is to say, the allies); dálaka would mean specially those sons of the king who were not assured an official title by the rank of their mothers, while dévikumára would be those who had the rank of princes. I have remarked above that the genitive dúlakána, substituted here for the locative which appears in the earlier phrases can only be construed with dánavisagésu: In dhaimapadána, I take apudána, in its Páli sense of action,' noble deed,' and as equivalent to the Sanskrit avadána. Even in Sansksit apadána is sometimes met in this sense (St. Petersb. Dict. . v.). The meaning would therefore be in the interests of religious practices.'
20. For ya iyan, equivalent to yad idan, see above, Edict I., note 6. As for the enumeration which follows, it strongly recalls that in the 2nd Edict, 1. 12. We must read sôchevé, for sôchêye, instead of sôchave. We have already (Kh. xiii. 2) met mádava, i.e. mardavan, in an analogous meaning. We should of course read sádhave not súdhanmé; especially as the first facsimile indicated the letter read as 8 by dots only, thus showing that the reading was already then indistinct and hypothetical.
21. The whole of this sentence has been perfectly explained by Burnout; he has made a mistake about one word only. He translates kapanavalákásu, 'the poor and children,' as if he had before him balaké su, but this transcription is inadmissible. We must here substitute the Sanskrit kripanavarákéshu, the exact form supposed by our text, i.e. the poor and the miserable.'
