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286
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1891.
clearly explained by a mistake in the starting point of the calculation, there exists between the written tradition and the monumental data a striking coincidence ; 24 and this coincidence does not allow us to doubt that the events related on one side about Piyadasi, and on the other side about Asoka, concern in reality one and the same person, designated under different names.25
It is, therefore, correct to maintain, as has long been done, that the Piyadasi of the monuments, and the Asoka of literature, are really the same king. That is the second preliminary point which we had to establish.
It now remains to determine the chronological order of our inscriptions.
A fixed point from which to set out is given by the 6th (columnar) edict of Delhi. The king declares that it was in the 13th year from his coronation that he had the first dhammalipis engraved. It is not easy to decide the exact extension which the king gave in his own mind to this expression. It is allowable to doubt if Piyadasi had intended to include under this letter, as relating to religion, short inscriptions such as those of the caves of Barabar. All that we can say is that hitherto none, even of this class, has been discovered which belongs to an earlier date, the two most ancient dedications of Barabar dating exactly from this thirteenth year. It is also certain that all the edicts now actually known to us belong to the category of dhammalipis; and as a matter of fact none of them is earlier than this thirteenth year, which is referred to by so many different monuments.
The Edict of Sahasaram-Rupnath,27 later by more than a year' than the active conversion of Piyadasi, also belongs to the commencement of this thirteenth year. It should be the most ancient of all, because it speaks of inscriptions on rocks and on columns as a desideratum, as a project, and not as an already accomplished fact. The execution of this project, however, must have soon followed. The fourth of the fourteen edicts is expressly dated the thirteenth year; but the fifth speaks of the creation of dharmamahámátras as belonging to the fourteenthIt is the same with respect to the columnar edicts. The first six are dated in the 27th year, and the seventh (7--8) in the 28th. Now, this last is missing in most of the versions. It is only preserved on the Dehli column. It is, besides, less symmetrically engraved than the others and the greater portion runs round the shaft.
Under these conditions one is tempted to conclude that, on the same monuments, the edicts" have been engraved at various times, according as the king judged it opportune to promulgate new ones. This conjecture would appear to be confirmed, so far as regards the rock edicts, by the fact that Dhauli and Jaugada, which agree with the other versions as regards the first ten edicts, have not the corresponding readings for the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth. This absence of a portion of the edicts can be explained by the theory of successive additions.
I quote here only as curiosities one or two instances of agreement in spirit between certain passages of the chronicle and certain idioms of our inscriptions. For example, the question which the king addressed to the samgha (according to Dipar. vi. 87), although unfortunately obscured by the alteration of the text, causes us, by the word ganana, to think of the final sentence of the 3rd edict. When we read, at verse 28 of the same chapter,
Itobahiddhapasande titthiyê nfnfdiṭṭhikê sárásarah gavêsanto puthuladdhi nimantayi,
we cannot help thinking of the 12th edict, and we are tempted to translate, after this analogy (sárására, like phali phala), 'seeking the essence of each doctrine.' This would be a singularly precise remembrance of Piyadasi's manner of speech aud thought. It is again a phrase commonly used by the king which the Samantapásâdiká employs (apud Oldenberg, loc. cit. p. 305), when it represents that Moggaliputta, at the moment when he induces the king to cause his sou to enter a religious life, is penetrated by this thought, såsanassa ativiya vuddhi bhavissatiti.
25 The use of birudas appears to have been at this epoch particularly common. Cf. Jacobi, ZDMG, XXXV. 669. 2 The correct interpretation of this phrase shews theerror of the opinion expressed by Lassen (Ind. Alterth. 112. 227), according to which this edict would be dated from the 13th year of the king.
27 It may be noted that the Barabar caves possess those inscriptions which are nearest of all to Pâțaliputra and that the Sahasarâm inscriptions are the next nearest. Barkbar is about 40 miles due south of Patna, Sahasrâm is about 60 or 70 miles to the south-west of that city. Pitaliputra was situated on the banks of the old river Son on a narrow spit of land between the Son and the Ganges. Sahasaram is close to the upper reaches of the Son.-G. A. G.
