Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Kandahar Greek Inscription (portions of Rock Edicts 12 and 13in Greek) and Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription (bilingual Greek-Aramaic), in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Shahbazgarhi, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan (in Kharosthi script) Mansehra Rock Edicts, Mansehra, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan (in Kharosthi script)
Ashoka's edicts were the first written inscriptions in India after the ancient city of Harrapa fell to ruin. [49] Due to the influence of Ashoka's Prakrit inscriptions, Prakrit would remain the main inscriptional language for the following centuries, until the rise of inscriptional Sanskrit from the 1st century CE. [46]
The Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription, also known as the Kandahar Edict of Ashoka and less commonly as the Chehel Zina Edict, is an inscription in the Greek and Aramaic languages that dates back to 260 BCE and was carved by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (r. 268–232 BCE) at Chehel Zina, a mountainous outcrop near Kandahar, Afghanistan.
These are the only Ashoka inscriptions thought to have belonged to a stone building. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The beginning and the end of the fragment are lacking, which suggests the inscription was original significantly longer, and may have included all 14 of Ashoka's Edicts in Greek, as in several other locations in India. [ 2 ]
The association of the Major inscriptions with "Ashoka" is only a reconstruction based on the 3rd-4th century CE Dipavamsa which associates the name "Ashoka" with the name "Priyadarsi", and an extrapolation based on the fact that the name "Ashoka" appears with the title "Devanampriya" ("Beloved of the Gods") in a few of the Minor Rock Edicts. [2]
The Minor Rock Edict were written quite early in the reign of Ashoka, from the 11th year of his reign at the earliest (according to his own inscription, "two and a half years after becoming a secular Buddhist", i.e. two and a half years at least after the Kalinga conquest of the eighth year of his reign, which is the starting point for his gradual conversion to Buddhism).
In these inscriptions, Ashoka refers to himself as "Beloved servant of the Gods" (Devanampiyadasi). The inscriptions revolve around a few recurring themes: Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism, the description of his efforts to spread Buddhism, his moral and religious precepts, and his social and animal welfare program. The edicts were based on ...
The association of the Major inscriptions with "Ashoka" is only a reconstruction based on the 3rd-4th century CE Dipavamsa which associates the name "Ashoka" with the name "Priyadarsi", and an extrapolation based on the fact that the name "Ashoka" appears with the title "Devanampriya" ("Beloved of the Gods") in a few of the Minor Rock Edicts. [6]