Edicts of Ashoka

The Edicts of Ashoka are a collection of more than thirty inscriptions on the Pillars of Ashoka, as well as boulders and cave walls, attributed to Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire who ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from 268 BCE to 232 BCE. These inscriptions were dispersed throughout the areas of modern-day India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and provide the first tangible evidence of Buddhism. The Edicts are the earliest written and datable texts from India, and, since they were inscribed on stone, we have the added benefit of having them exactly as they were originally inscribed. Earlier texts, such as the Vedic texts, were all composed and handed down orally until later dates.

Ashoka used the expression Dhaṃma Lipi (Prakrit in the Brahmi script: 𑀥𑀁𑀫𑀮𑀺𑀧𑀺, "Inscriptions of the Dharma") to describe his own Edicts. The edicts describe in detail Ashoka's policy on dhamma, an earnest attempt to solve some of the problems that a complex society faced. According to the edicts, the extent of his promotion of dhamma during this period reached as far as the Greeks in the Mediterranean region. While the inscriptions mention the conversion of Ashoka to Buddhism, the dhamma that he promotes is largely ecumenical and non-sectarian in nature. As historian Romila Thapar relates:

In his edicts Aśoka defines the main principles of dhamma as non-violence, tolerance of all sects and opinions, obedience to parents, respect to brahmins and other religious teachers and priests, liberality toward friends, humane treatment of servants and generosity towards all. It suggests a general ethic of behaviour to which no religious or social group could object. It also could act as a focus of loyalty to weld together the diverse strands that made up the empire. Interestingly, the Greek versions of these edicts translate dhamma as eusebeia (piety) and no mention is made anywhere of the teachings of the Buddha, as would be expected if Aśoka had been propagating Buddhism.’

The inscriptions show his efforts to develop the dhamma throughout his empire. Although Buddhism as well as Gautama Buddha are mentioned, the edicts focus on social and moral precepts rather than specific religious practices or the philosophical dimension of Buddhism. These were located in public places and were meant for people to read.

In these inscriptions, Ashoka refers to himself as "Beloved of the Gods" (Devanampiya). The identification of Devanampiya with Ashoka was confirmed by an inscription discovered in 1915 by C. Beadon, a British gold-mining engineer, at Maski, a town in Madras Presidency (present day Raichur district, Karnataka). Another minor rock edict, found at the village Gujarra in Gwalior State (present day Datia district of Madhya Pradesh), also used the name of Ashoka together with his titles: Devanampiya Piyadasi Asokaraja. The inscriptions found in the central and eastern part of India were written in Magadhi Prakrit using the Brahmi script, while Prakrit using the Kharoshthi script, Greek and Aramaic were used in the northwest. These edicts were deciphered by British archaeologist and historian James Prinsep.

The inscriptions revolve around a few recurring themes: Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism, the description of his efforts to spread dhamma, his moral and religious precepts, and his social and animal welfare program. The edicts were based on Ashoka's ideas on administration and behavior of people towards one another and religion.

Besides a few inscriptions in Greek and Aramaic (which were discovered only in the 20th century), the Edicts were mostly written in the Brahmi script and sometimes in the Kharoshthi script in the northwest, two Indian scripts which had both become extinct around the 5th century CE, and were yet undeciphered at the time the Edicts were discovered and investigated in the 19th century.

The first successful attempts at deciphering the ancient Brahmi script were made in 1836 by Norwegian scholar Christian Lassen, who used the bilingual Greek-Brahmi coins of Indo-Greek king Agathocles to correctly and securely identify several Brahmi letters. The task was then completed by James Prinsep, an archaeologist, philologist, and official of the East India Company, who was able to identify the rest of the Brahmi characters, with the help of Major Cunningham. In a series of results that he published in March 1838 Prinsep was able to translate the inscriptions on a large number of rock edicts found around India, and to provide, according to Richard Salomon, a "virtually perfect" rendering of the full Brahmi alphabet. The edicts in Brahmi script mentioned a King Devanampriya Piyadasi which Prinsep initially assumed was a Sri Lankan king. He was then able to associate this title with Ashoka on the basis of Pali script from Sri Lanka communicated to him by George Turnour.