Jainism Early Faith of Ashoka

Author(s): Edward Thomas
Publisher: Trubner and Company London

Page 68

THE EARLY FAITH OF AŞOKA.
or Maráthí—Mágadhí, and Gándhárí" [the Semitic version of Kapurdigiri].
I should have had more confidence in this rectification of the translations of all previous masters of the craft, if the modern critic had proceeded upon diametrically opposite principles, and had recognized the confessed necessity of the variation and distribution of dialects, site by site, as a fact making against the pretended supremacy of classical Sanskrit at this early date.
Singular to say, with all these reservations, I am fully prepared to accept so much of Dr. Kern's general conclusions as, without concert, chances opportunely to support and confirm my leading argument, with regard to the predominance of Jainism in the first and second series of Asoka’s Inscriptions. Dr. Kern, elsewhere, relies on a short indorsement of, or supplementary addition to, the framework of the Girnár Inscription, as satisfactorily proving, to his perception, the Buddhistical import of the whole set of Edicts which precede it on the same rock.
I am under the impression that this incised scroll is of later date than the body of the epigraph. It is larger in size, does not range with the rest of the writing, and does not, in terms, fit-in with the previous context. Of course should it prove to be authentic and synchronous in execution with the other chiselled letters, and, at the same time, of exclusively Buddhist tendency, I might regard its tenor as
1 The pretence of the universality of the Sanskrit la e in India at this period has often been contested in respect to the method of reconstruction of these ancient monuments. Mr. Turnour was the first to protest against James Prinsep's submission to the Sanskritic tendencies of his Pandits. Mr. B. Hodgson, in like manner, consistently upheld the local claims and prior currency of the various forms of the vernaculars, and, most unquestionably, Professor Wilson's own perception and faculty of interpreting this class of inter-provincial records was damaged and obscured by his obstinate demands for good dictionary Sanskrit.
? “In one place only-I mean the signature of the Girnár inscription—the following words have reference to Buddha. Of this signature there remains,
... va sveto hasti savalokasukháharo naiina. What has to be supplied at the beginning I leave to the ingenuity of others to determine, but what is left means the white elephant' whose name is Bringer of