The Sacred Books and Early Literature of the - Bill Heidrick's Cross ...

14 THE SACRED BOOKS
our earliest surviving texts of Buddhism. Perhaps indeed
no Buddhist work had ever been written down before his
time. The preachers had depended wholly on oral teaching.
King Asoka's inscriptions themselves are so hard to follow
that, after offering literal translations of their most celebrated
sections, we here give the reader a free poetical rendering of
some of the inscriptions by a modern Hindu scholar. These
preserve the spirit of the original while giving it in simple
form.
Though we have no definite knowledge of the chronologi-
cal order of these inscriptions, the first here translated is
among the early ones, possibly the earliest. It is carved on
a small granite rock now preserved at Calcutta and called,
from its finding-place, the "Edict of Bhabra." The next,
the "Thirteenth Edict of Girnar," is the most famous, in
that it announces the extent and purpose of Asoka's religious
conquests. It is one of a series of badly defaced inscriptions
first found carved on the rock face at Girnar, and since dis-
covered in duplicate on other rocks. The "pillar edicts"
are eight in number and have been found on stone columns in
several places. The reader should be warned that in these
edicts King Asoka never mentions his own name, but speaks
of himself as Piyadasi, which means the "benevolent," or as
Devanampiya, which means "Dear to the Gods."