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NOTES ON AŚOKA'S ROCK EDICTS
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passage'.11 Bloch, however, notes in footnote 6 that it is tempting to interpret desa as referring to localities (as done by Hultzsch) where the inscriptions are engraved because in fact there do exist local variations in the versions of the edicts. But he notes that in that case we shall have to derive sarkhāya from saṁ khyā-. But the Girnar version gives sachāya as the corresponding form and khy does not normally give ch in MIA. One is, therefore, led to see the verb v kşi in deriving these forms and then it would be impossible to take desa to mean locality.
Asoka says that at times his edicts may not have been written completely. This could have happened either because the omission had crept in inadvertently or because it was intentional. In the former case the omission can be attributed to the mistake of the writer (lipikarāparādha). In the latter case, the officer-in-charge must have thought of some good ground for making an omission (kāraņa va alocetpå). But a third factor, not related to the contents of the edicts, also could have been responsible for certain omissions. It was that the place where the edict was to be engraved was not enough for this purpose. It could not contain the entire inscription and hence some omissions were called for. The word desa, therefore, should be taken to refer to the place like the surface of the rock where the inscription was to be engraved and sachāya is to be derived from saṁ khyā.. We, therefore, translate desaṁ va sachāya as 'either having taken into account the smallness of the place (where the edict was to be engraved).'
Bühler had long ago correctly explained the word desa. His translation of the Kāl. version runs as 'sei es mit Ruecksicht auf den Ort (wo die Inshrift steht)'13 which he further explains as 'weil auf dem steine nicht fuer alles Raum war.'
As noted above, Bloch who considered the possibility of interpreting desa as locality rejected it because in that case the form sachaya had to be derived from samkhyā, but the ch of the Girnar form could not be explained from the cluster khy. But this difficulty can be overcome by explaining ch in sachāya as an instance of 'hyper-westernism'. It is true that khy does not give ch. But the cluster kş gives ch in the western, and kh in the eastern dialect, cf. chamitave, chuda, and vracha at Girnar, but khamitave, khudaka, and lukha at Dhauli and Jaugada. The translator at Girnar was, therefore, familiar with the fact that a western ch corresponded to the eastern kh in certain words. It is, therefore, quite likely that he in mistake did the same kind of substitution in the eastern form sankhāya, 14 although it was not etymologically justified, and wrote it as sam cháya.
Madhu Vidyā/311
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