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JULY, 1891.]
THE INSCRIPTIONS OF PIYADASI.
231
We henceforth find ourselves, so far as regards the conversion of the king, in the presence of two dates; the 13th Edict giving his ninth year, and the 8th his eleventh. Now, it is just the Edict of Sahasaram, the mearung of which we have already explained on purely philological grounds, which does away with and explains this apparent contradiction. We have seen that the king, after a first conversion, remained during more than two years and a half,' in a lukewarmness with which he subsequently bitterly reproached himself. If we admit that the conquest of Kalinga and the conversion which accompanied it ought to be placed eight years and three months (i. e, in the ninth year) after the coronation of Piyadasi, his actual and decisive conversion, being more than two and a half years later (say for example two years and seven months), would exactly fall in the eleventh year, as indicated by the 8th Edict. The agreement is so perfect, and accounts so completely, not only for dates, but even for the expressions (sambódhiri nishkrántur) designedly employed by the king, that I am persuaded that the verbal interpretation on which it rests is this time really definitive. We shall shortly deal again with other features which appear to me to furnish further verification of it, but at present we are entitled to draw one conclusion, - that it must be admitted that the 8th and the 13th Edicts refer to the same person as the Edict of Sabasaram-Rupnath, and that this édict certainly emanates from the same sovereign as all the others.
But as I have already shewn in explaining the 6th Columnar Edict of Dehli, this is not the only coincidence. The king declares that he only commenced having his religious edicts engraved in the thirteenth year after his coronation; as a matter of fact, none of the group of inscriptions formerly known either carries or implies an earlier date. The Sahasarúm tablet itself (cf. Sah. n. 2.), being written more than a year after the second conversion of the king, ought to belong just to the commencement of the thirteenth year. Now, it alone speaks of the religious edicts as in the future, and, as can be seen from my translation of its concluding words, it contemplates their execution. It directs the representatives of the king to engrave them both upon rocks and upon columns, and it is thus almost certain that this edict and its fellows were the first, — they are certainly among the first, which their author had engraved. They relate to his thirteenth year, and this is another strong reason for believing that this author is no other than that king, the author of the inscriptions of Dehli, who commenced in his thirtecuth year to have inscriptions of the same class engraved.
Regarding the two other dates with which the king supplies us, we have at present nothing to say, except that they agree very well with the preceding ones. He mentions the thirteenth year of his coronation (3rd Edict) as that in which he organized the anusarnyánu, which was thus one of the first manifestations of his religious zeal; and he tells us that he created in the fourteenth year the office of the dharmamahamátras.
These chronological indications are, it is true, too rare to satisfy our curiosity, but they at least suffice to allow us to answer with full confidence the first of the questions which we have just put. It is certuin that all the inscriptions which we have examined must be referred to one and the same author. Who was that author ?
He gives himself no other name than that of Piyadasi, Priyadarbin, usually accompanied by the adjective devånam priya, 'dear unto the devas.' Sometimes this epithet alone is used to designate him. Whether, daring the epoch of the Maaryas, this title had the extended application conjectured by Dr. Bühler® or not, it is certain that it is only an epithet, and
• vis., the 14 Edicts; the Columnar Edicts; those of Dhauli and Jaugada; of Sahnearám, Rūpnath and Bairat, and of Bhabra; and the inscriptions of Barabar.
Bühler, Beiträge, VIIIth Edict, n. 1. In the first line of this edict (at KhAlel, Dr. Bühler's new materials allow him to read atikamtaria antalan davanıthpiyd vihalayatas nama nikhamisu (at Kapur di Giri, also, the true reading is dtuananipriya instead of java jaraya). It looks as if devanartupiya corresponded here purely and simply to the rajano of GirnAr and Dhauli. Dr. Bühler, adopting the opinion of Pandit Bhagwanlal Indrajt (u. Bo. Br., R. 4. 8., Vol. XV. p. 286, and Ind. Ant. Vol. X. p. 108) considers that this epithet was a title which, at the epoch of the Mauryas, all kings bore without distinction.
