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JULY, 1891.)
THE INSCRIPTIONS OF PIYADASI.
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THE INSCRIPTIONS OF PIYADASI. BY E. SENART, MEMBRE DE L'INSTITUT DE FRANCE. Translated by G. A. Grierson, B.O.S., and revised by the Author.
(Continued from p. 170.)
CHAPTER IV. THE AUTHOR AND THE LANGUAGE OF THE INSCRIPTIONS. TT has been my intention, when undertaking this re-investigation into the epigraphical 1 monuments left by Piyadasi, that it should not be concluded without bringing together the Conclusions to which they lead or of which they furnish the essential elements, both from the point of view of history and chronology, and also from that of palæography and grammar. It is the varied problems which these curious inscriptions raise, and to the solution of which they contribute, that give them such inestimable value. We cannot well leave them aside. We shall have, in turn, not only to sum up results arrived at, but sometimes, also, to offer new remarks.
The task divides itself naturally into two parts; the first devoted to tho author of the inscriptions, his date, his character, his administration, his moral and religious ideas, - in short, his place in historical development, and the second dealing with paleographic and linguistic facts, and the information derived therefrom regarding the literary culture of ancient India.
I. - THE AUTHOR OF THE INSCRIPTIONS. A number of chronological and historical problems are connected, directly or indirectly, with our inscriptions and their author. The end which I have in view does not compel me to take up all, and I desire to limit myself as much as possible to summing up and classifying the items of information that the edicts, which we have passed in review, contain.
Three questions force themselves at first upon our attention as being of importance for further investigations. We must know if all the inscriptions, on which we have commented, belong certainly to the same author; who that author really is; and in what chronological order the epigraphic documents which he has left us range themselves.
Regarding the first point, doubts can only arise with respect to the inscriptions more lately discovered at Sahasaram, Rupnath, and Bairat. The author calls himself simply by the epithet of Devanampiya, and omits the proper name Piyadasi. No one can doubt that all the others emanate from one and the same person. Wilson has indeed put forward a singular theory on this subject. According to him, the different inscriptions were probably engraved by local sovereigns. or by influential religious personages, who, to give themselves more authority, have usurped the celebrated name of Piyadasi ; but this hypothesis depends upon so many errors of translation and apprehension, is so evidently contradicted by the unity of tone which reigns throughout all the edicts, by their perfect agreement and the natural way in which they complete each other, and has besides found so little echo, that it appears superfluous to pause for its consideration.
The same is not the case with regard to the doubts which have been raised by competent judges touching the origin of the Edict of Sahasaram and Rupnath. It is known already that I do not consider these doubts to be any better founded than the others. Dr. Bühler, when pablishing this edict for the first time, clearly shewed most of the reasons which lead us to refer
It is, of course, impossible in such a matter, when new contributions are frequently issuing from competent hands, to keep one's own particular work up to date. In these concluding chapters, however, I have tried to avail myself of auch new comments as have appeared since the conclusion of my own, whenever they bore upon some topic which necessarily came under consideration. I refer specially to the article, throughout at once learned and ingenious, which Dr. Pischel has devoted to my
Dr. Pischel has devoted to my first volume in the Göttinger Anzeigen, and to the Beiträge wur Erklärung der Afdka inschriften published by Dr. Bühler in the Zeitschrift der D. Morgenländischen Gesellschaft which are here quoted according to the continuous pagination of the reprints. J. R. A. 8. XII. pp. 249 and ff.
8 ante, Vol. VII. pp. 143.ff.
