DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

7:4] THE LANGUAGE OF ASOKAN EDICTS 209
from their being the very first declarations written down in India for
public use, graven upon imperishable rock often laboriously
transported from considerable distance for the purpose.
The Kandhar edict of Asoka (IsMEO, Serie Orientate, Roma XXI,
1958) in Greek and Aramaic strengthens the foregoing. That there
is no Magadhi version indicates that the lingua franca of each province
was used. On the other hand, the word (corresponding to) dhamma
is carelessly translated in this edict, so that the main purpose could
never have been the propagation of Buddhism. It is clear that Asoka’s
use of dhamma still refers to the various tribal and clan laws (each of
which” implied a corresponding ritual), which his officials were to
regularise into a social order. Moreover, the exclusive use of Magadhi
in the Indian edicts does not show that there was no other language,
but that there were far too many others, each being restricted to the
unwritten speech of a small local tribe. The Magadhan traders and
monks had for the first time brought a script and a widely understood
language along the trade-routes ; the Magadhan king, even when
showing his special care for the people of Kalinga, found none other
which had a chance of being understood. For many centuries thereafter,
other kings of widely separate origins were to be both the script and the
language for their inscriptions.
7.4. The Mauryan administration before Asoka is described in
the ‘Arthasastra of Kautalya (incorrectly Kautilya), otherwise known
as Canakya and Visnugupta, traditionally the great minister of
Candragupta Maurya. The authenticity of this extraordinary and still
difficult book has been doubted with unusually acrid, even rabid,
polemic. The question must be discussed if our deductions from the
work are to remain valid. The bitterest criticism was made by Keith
:
“ Efforts have naturally been made to find at least striking resemblance between
the account given in the Arthasastra and the fragments of Megasthenes. The effort is a
complete failure; coincidences there are many in number, but on matters which hold good
of India generally in the period before and after Christ. The vital resemblances of
important detail are lacking, even when we put aside all those statements of the
Greek author which rest doubtless on misunderstandings or are obscurely reported.