________________
238
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1891.
If the 3rd edict constitutes this contemporary foundation charter of the anusarnyána, there is every reason to believe that it is the same with the 5th edict with respect to the
harmamahámátras, and that both the tablet and the office date from the fourteenth year. The following tablets up to the 14th contain no more chronological indications. They can all belong to the fourteenth year, and are certainly not of earlier date. The 12th, for example, mentions the dharmamahámátras. As for the 8th, which alludes to the second conversion of the king, and places it in the eleventh year, nothing compels us to consider it as contemporary with that fact, any more than the 13th is contemporary with the conquest of Kalinga : my corrected interpretation of the passage gives on the contrary, in the last sentence, a positive reason in favour of its later origin.
Taking it altogether, the date of the fourteenth year for the group of the 14 edicts appears to me to be very probable. The detached edicts of Dhauli furnish us in this respect, if not with a decisive proof, at least with a presumption of value. Towards the end of the tirst of these edicts, Piyadasi declares that he will cause the anusarnyána (see below) to be held every five years. This manner of speaking is only intelligible if the inscription is contemporary with, or at least very shortly posterior to the origin of this institution. Now the date of this, origin is fixed by the 3rd edict as the thirteenth year. The fourteenth year would, therefore, be a very probable date for the passage in which the king thus expresses himself, and this would necessarily imply that edicts 5 to 14 which precede it, are themselves not posterior
to it.
As for the columnar edicts, the six first belong certainly to the twenty-seventh year, because the first, the fourth, the fifth, and the sixth bear this date. The last (VII. – VIII.) belongs to the succeeding year. They give us the last expression which is accessible to us of the ideas and intentions of the king.
Between them and the series of the 16 edicts, we have nothing but the dedicatory inscription, No. 3 of Barabar, which is dated in the twentieth year. It is much to be regretted that there is no date given in the inscription of Bhabra. I know no means, as yet, of supplying this silence of the text. All that I dare to say is that, judging from some details of phraseology, it rives me the impression of being nearer to the rock edicts than to the columnar ones. If it is not contemporary with the 16 edicts and with the edict of Sahasaram-Rupnåth, I cannot think that it is much posterior. At any rate, it is altogether arbitrary to defer it to the later times of the reign of Piyadasi, and to place it, as Mr. Thomas has done, without any proof other than a pre-conceived theory to which we shall subsequently refer, after the edicts of the twentyeighth year.20
These facts, however incomplete, have a great value for us. It is important to bear them well in mind, in order to avoid more than one cause of confusion. They suffice to clear away, by unpregnable arguments, certain adventurous theories.
The ground now seems sufficiently cleared to allow us to pass to the examination of the historical questions which interest us.
The first is naturally the question of date. All literary sources, of whatever origin, agree m representing Asoka as the grandson of Chandragupta. The double identifcation, of Charidrayupta with the Sandrokottos of the Greeks, und of Asoka with our Piyadasi, only allows us to search towards the middle of the 3rd century for the poch of our inscriptions. So far as I can see, they themselves only offer us a single clue for arriving at a more precise date. I refer, as will be readily understood, to the synchronism furnished by the names of the Greek kings. Its exact value cannot be appreciated witliont forming a general opinion as to the relation entertained by Piyadasi towards foreigu nations, and as to the degree of authority which we should nccord to his evidence on this shinnt.
>> On the Early Faith of A süku, J. R. A S., X. X., IX, pp. 204, aud ff.
