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256
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[JULY, 1891.
coincidence by the fact that, again in both cases, the same word (dipi, lipi) is used to designate the inscriptions, and that, as we have seen, we are led to admit, on altogether independent grounds, that the Indian form of the word was originally borrowed from Persia. The very idea of engraving long inscriptions upon rocks is neither so natural nor so universal that the coinci. dence in this respect between Piyadasi and Achæmenide kings should easily be considered to be fortuitous. I certainly do not pretend to discover here a direct and conscious imitation of the Achemenian inscriptions, but the protocol employed in both cases must have been consecrated by an older custom of the royal chanceries, and in this imitation I cannot refrain from noting a trace of the influence exercised by the Persian conquest and administration in north-west India. It was Darius who first carried thither his rule and his arms, and the organisation of the Satrapies, 77 which he instituted about the same time, was exactly of a nature to spread abroad the usages and formulas of administration peculiar to his empire. This remark naturally agrees with a conjecture which I have made elsewhere.78 It tends to confirm the influence which I thought myself jastified in attributing to the Persian administration over the palmographical history of India. It is a subject to which I shall have to return.
The literary traditions are strangely silent regarding the various governmental and administrative measures, which are known to us through the evidence of these monuments. We have, it is true, proved coincidences or points of agreement between the two classes of documents, which are characteristic enough, and from which we can be certain of the identity of the Piyadasi of the inscriptions, with the Asoka of the books; but it must be admitted that, beyond these valuable concordances, the two series of accounts diverge in a singular manner. It is seldom that they refer to the same facts, so as to render one a direct check upon the other. It is not that they are contradictory or incompatible with each other, but that, simply, they do not speak of the same things. The chronicles, for instance, do not even mention the conquest of Kalinga, or the relations of the king with foreign princes. This circumstance is capable of explanation. In the writings of the Northern Buddhists we only possess fragmentary acconnts of Asoka, a nd the Sinhalese chronicles do not profess to give his biography in detail. If this prince interests them, it is because he is considered as the principal author of the diffusion of Buddhism in Ceylon, and it is only the religious aspects of his life which are of importance in the eyes of the monkish writers.79 Moreover, it has long been recognized that these traditions, both those of the north and those of Ceylon, are deeply imbued with legendary elements, which are, at least in great part, apocryphal, and which were certainly composed long after the epoch the history of which they reflect. The sphere of religion is almost the only one with regard to which some comparisons are possible; and that which gives some interest to the comparisons, limited though they be, which we are able to institute, is, that from them we may hope to recognise in what direction, if not in what degree, tradition has gradually deviated from the truth.
According to the Sinhalese chronicles, the coronation of Aboka did not take place till four years after his coming to the throne, and we have no means for certainly checking this statement. There is nothing to show its improbability, and we might even say that the care with which the king, agreeing in this with the practice of the chroniclers, expressly dates from his abhisheka the facts about which he informs ne, appears rather to indicate that his coronation, as a matter of fact, could not have coincided with his taking possession of his power. The tradition is most liable to suspicion so far as it deals with the events which are said to have accompanied this act of taking possession, or at least which are said to have preceded the coronation. If we are to believe the Sinhalese, Asoka seized the throne after putting to death ninety-nine of his brothers, and is said to have spared one only, Tishya, who entered three years later into a monastic life. The commission of this crime is contradicted by the inscriptions, in wbich he speaks of his brothers, and of their residence in various towns of his empire ; indeed,
17 Cf. Spiegel, Eran. Alterth., II., pp. 328 and #f. 79 Cf. the remark of Tarantha, Germ. translat. p. 29.
78 Journ. Asiatique, 1879, I. p. 536
