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90
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
MARCH, 1890.
parallelism between the commencement of the following sentence, sé ichhitaviyé, &c., and the commencement of the preceding one, tata ichhitaviye tuphêhi, indicates that both concern the same subject, the officers of the king. Moreover, the proposition set forth in the direct style, which winds up with mama, can scarcely be placed in the mouth of any one but these officers, whom alone the king addresses in this proclamation. I conclude, therefore, that the defects enumerated here are those against which Piyadasi warns his representatives when employed in carrying out his mandates. You must,' he tells them, desire to set men in the Good Way. But there are certain imperfections which will prevent your succeeding, and of which you should endeavour to free yourselves (été játá nô huvévu mamati). Amongst these defects, there are several terms of which the meaning has been misconceived. The reading dsulopa, which is certainly correct, as may be judged from its repetition in several passages, excludes at once both Burnouf's translation le retranchement de la vie, le meurtre,' (which, not to mention other difficulties, would presuppose a spelling asulópa) and the conjecture asulosa, i.e. asurôsha, of Dr. Kern. Asulópa lends itself, in fact, to a very suitable translation; lôpa ordinarily means 'interruption,' giving up;' ásulópa can therefore be translated 'precipitate giving up,' and, consequently, readiness to be discouraged.' It seems to me that the following sentence indirectly confirms this analysis. All this enumeration is in a manner summed up in the two terms ásulópa and túland. Every one agrees in recognising in the second of these an equivalent of the Sanskrit tuarana, with the meaning of
hurry.' To this excess of zeal it is very natural to oppose the opposite excess, feebleness and discouragement, and the sentence thus brings together, as the two poles of these defects, various others against which the king wished to take precautions. Burnouf derived anávuti from ávsitti, and translated it 'absence de profession, de travail;' but this meaning, which belongs to vritti, is not used for dvritti. Dr. Kern transcribes it anduriti, and translates unheedfulness. I have already remarked (see above, IV., notes 1 and 9) that the transcription áyukti is the only suitable one in the case of the Columnar Edicts, and even in the present edict, a little lower down, it appears to be guaranteed by the evidence of Jaugada. This is a very strong reason for believing that here, again, the same spelling represents the same word. Anáyukti can be well translated by 'want of application,' and is naturally connected with álasiya. It is unnecessary to recall how frequent in these texts is the use of the verb yuj to signify 'to apply oneself,' 'to make an effort. The last term of the series belongs to the same order of ideas, and it is surprising that its form has not been previously rectified. We must read kilamatha at Dhauli, as we have it at Jaugada ; that is to say, as in Pali, fatigue,' 'indolence.' We must without hesitation abandon the ingenious, but arbitrary and really unsatisfactory analysis of the pandits of Prinsep. The rubbing of Jaugada does away with all uncertainty. The participle leilanta should have set previous interpreters in the right direction,
14. It is clear that éta, as is freqnently the case, sums up the idea implied in what precedes, - the being exempt from the various defects just enumerated. I have some little hesitation regarding the last word of the sentence. Dr. Kern has already conjecturally corrected the reading nitichhan of the Corpus to nitiyan. Nitiyan, i.e. nityár, suits the passage very well. We have seen above (note 8) that niti is employed in several instances with reference to the duties of the maha mátras, and it is therefore natural that the king should direct them to avoid, in their moral propaganda,' both the discouragement and the excess of zeal. But Jangada reads niti yani. We are hence compelled to assume either that the disjunction is due to a mistake of the engraver, or that nitiyar onght, as a matter of fact, to be split op into niti iyanit. In this latter case the two words must form an independent proposition. We must translate, the essential in all this, is to avoid both discouragement and excess of zeal : that is [that which constitutes] the true) method of conduct. I prefer, however, the former hypothesis. It supplies & more natural and more simple construction; and at the same time allows us to state here for níti a sense more exactly in agreement with that which the earlier passages assign to it. On the other hand Jaugada has, further on, nitiyasi which corresponds to
