Madhuvidya

Author(s): S D Laddu, T N Dharmadhikari, Madhvi Kolhatkar, Pratibha Pingle
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 293

VERSIONS OF ASOKA'S MINOR ROCK EDICT
There is one more point in which the Yerragudi version differs from the others. While all the other versions are written from left to right, the Yerragudi version, though written in Brāhmi, shows certain lines being inscribed from right to left as was the custom for the Kharoşthi script used in the north-west. While commenting on this state of affairs, BARUA (IHQ 9.114-15, 1953) observes, “The anamoly in the engraving of the inscription might be partly due to the fact that the scribe entrusted with the work was inefficient and careless, and partly due to the fact that he was so much habituated to writing the Kharoşthi form of writing from right to left that it was very difficult, nay, impossible for him to shake it off even in writing a Brāhmi inscription." But this is a little difficult to admit, because there is at least some consistency in writing almost always the even lines from right to left, and it would be much better to explain the confusion as arising from the fact that it reflected an attempt on the part of the scribe to combine the two ways in which the Brāhmi and the Kharoşthi scripts were written--the former because he was actually writing the edict in that script, and the latter because the original draft was written in that script. This is a small piece of palaeographic evidence to show that the original draft was issued from the north-west. (For another possible palaeographic evidence, see below p. 94 footnote 58).
Two announcements have been made in recent times regarding the discovery of two more versions of the minor rock edict-the one at Rajula-Nandagiri near Pattikonda in the Kurnool district (the find-spot. is only twenty miles from Yerragudi), and the other in a forest near the village Gujarra in the Datia district, Vindhya Pradesh. Both these versions have not been yet published and hence they are not treated in this paper. When published, these versions would be of great help either to support or alter some of the observations made in these two papers on Asoka's minor rock edict.
With these introductory remarks I proceed to show the northwestern (or western) characteristics found in the different versions.
(1) The vowel ? : In these versions there are not many words with which express human relationship. The only available instance is -pitu- (pitr) occurring in yr version, and it shows the north-western
6. I have already pointed out in my paper on the Mysore versions that the last
word in that version, viz. lipikarena is written in the Kharoşthi alphabet and that
this is one of the facts pointing to the north-western origin of the edict. 7. Indian Archaeology 1953-54. A Review, New Delhi, 1954. 8. "The Times of India", 10th December, 1954.
Madhu Vidya/268