The Edicts of Ashoka: Rock and Pillar Inscriptions

What the Edicts of Ashoka Are and Why They Matter

The Edicts as the Earliest Deciphered Records of Indian History

What is the significance of the edicts: they are the single most important source for the Mauryan period and one of the great primary sources of all ancient Indian history.

The edicts of Ashoka are inscriptions that the emperor had engraved on rock surfaces, on tall stone pillars and on the walls of caves, to publish his policy of Dhamma and his instructions to his officers and people. They are the earliest deciphered written records of Indian history.

The older Indus script is many centuries earlier, but it remains undeciphered. The edicts are therefore the first Indian writing we can actually read, and the first to give us a named ruler speaking in his own voice.

Their value is threefold. They fix the historicity of Ashoka beyond doubt; they reveal his ideas of kingship and morality at first hand; and, because they survive at so many places, their find-spots let us trace the extent of the empire on the ground.

Devanampiya Piyadasi: The Royal Style Used in the Edicts

Distinguishing the royal name: a striking fact about the edicts is that almost none of them give the king's personal name, which is the very reason his identity was once lost.

In nearly all the edicts the king calls himself not Ashoka but Devanampiya Piyadasi, which means the Beloved of the Gods, of gracious mien. Only a handful of the minor edicts, at sites such as Maski and Gujarra, give the personal name Asoka. Because the common edicts withhold the name, the link between the Piyadasi of the inscriptions and the Ashoka of the texts had to be proved, a puzzle solved only in the twentieth century.

The Classification of Ashoka's Edicts into Rock and Pillar Inscriptions

An Overview of the Six Classes of Ashokan Edicts

What is the significance of the classification: the edicts are grouped by where and how they were cut, and the examiner expects an aspirant to keep the classes and their leading sites apart.

Ashoka's inscriptions fall into a few well-defined classes. The Major Rock Edicts, fourteen in number, carry the fullest statement of his policy and stand at the frontiers of the empire. The Minor Rock Edicts are shorter and more personal. The Major Pillar Edicts, seven in number, are cut on the great polished pillars of the Gangetic plain. To these are added the Minor Pillar Edicts, the separate Kalinga edicts and the cave dedications.

The Major Rock Edicts (Fourteen) and Their Frontier Sites

Distinguishing the Major Rock Edicts: these fourteen edicts are the heart of Ashoka's message and ring the borders of the empire, from the north-west to the Deccan.

The fourteen Major Rock Edicts proclaim the whole programme of Dhamma: non-violence and the curbing of animal slaughter, tolerance of all sects, care for servants and the poor, the appointment of the Dhamma Mahamatras, and the renunciation of war after Kalinga.

They are found at the edges of the empire, at Girnar in Gujarat, Kalsi in Uttarakhand, Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra in the north-west, Sopara in Maharashtra, Dhauli and Jaugada in Odisha, Erragudi in Andhra Pradesh and Sannati in Karnataka. Two of these edicts, the second and the thirteenth, name the southern kingdoms and the Hellenistic kings, which is how we place the empire so precisely.

The Minor Rock Edicts and the Inscriptions That Name Ashoka

What is the significance of the Minor Rock Edicts: short though they are, these edicts are precious, because it is here, and only here, that the king is called Asoka.

The Minor Rock Edicts are found at many sites across central and southern India, among them Maski, Gujarra, Brahmagiri, Nittur, Udegolam, Rupnath, Sasaram and Bairat. Their importance is twofold. First, the edicts at Maski and Gujarra give the personal name Asoka, settling the identity of the king of the edicts. Second, the Bhabru edict at Bairat is addressed to the Buddhist order and names texts that Ashoka commends, a rare window on his personal faith.

The Major Pillar Edicts (Seven) on the Polished Sandstone Pillars

Distinguishing the pillar edicts: unlike the rock edicts of the frontier, the seven major pillar edicts belong to the Gangetic heartland and stand on Ashoka's famous monolithic columns.

The seven Major Pillar Edicts are engraved on the tall, polished sandstone pillars that are among the masterpieces of Mauryan art. They review the work of Dhamma, record Ashoka's welfare measures and his appointment of officers, and reflect on the progress of his policy.

The pillars bearing them stand at Delhi-Topra and Delhi-Meerut, both moved to Delhi in later centuries, at Allahabad-Kosam, and at Lauriya-Araraj, Lauriya-Nandangarh and Rampurva in Bihar. The Allahabad pillar is notable because the same column was later inscribed by the Gupta emperor Samudragupta with his Prayaga Prashasti.

The Minor Pillar Edicts: The Schism Edict and the Commemorative Pillars

What is the significance of the minor pillar edicts: these shorter pillar inscriptions record two memorable things, Ashoka's concern for the unity of the Buddhist order and his pilgrimages.

The Schism Edict, found at Sarnath, Sanchi and Allahabad-Kosam, warns monks and nuns against creating a split, a schism, in the sangha, and shows the emperor as protector of the order's unity.

The commemorative Rummindei pillar at Lumbini in Nepal records Ashoka's visit to the birthplace of the Buddha and his order that the village be freed of one tax and pay only a reduced land share of one-eighth. A second pillar at Nigali Sagar records his enlargement of a stupa.

The Separate Kalinga Edicts and the Barabar Cave Inscriptions

Distinguishing two special groups: two classes of inscription stand apart, the separate edicts for conquered Kalinga and the dedications cut inside the Barabar caves.

At Dhauli and Jaugada in Odisha, in place of the thirteenth rock edict on the Kalinga war, Ashoka had two Separate Kalinga Edicts cut, instructing his officers to govern the newly conquered people with fairness and as a father would his children. Separately, the Barabar caves near Gaya in Bihar carry dedicatory inscriptions recording that Ashoka gave these polished rock-cut caves as a shelter to the Ajivika ascetics, a mark of his tolerance of sects other than his own.

The Languages and Scripts of Ashoka's Inscriptions

Prakrit in the Brahmi Script across the Mauryan Heartland

What is the significance of the scripts: the edicts were cut in the language and letters of each region, so that the king's word could be read by his subjects everywhere, and this variety is itself an exam favourite.

Across the great bulk of the empire the edicts are written in Prakrit, the spoken language of the people, and in the Brahmi script, which runs from left to right. Brahmi is the ancestor of most of the scripts of India and South-East Asia.

Brahmi is the script of the rock edicts at Girnar, Kalsi and Dhauli and of all the pillar edicts. Because it carried the message to most of the empire, its decipherment was the key that unlocked the edicts as a whole.

Kharoshthi, Greek and Aramaic on the North-West Frontier

Distinguishing the frontier scripts: in the north-west, where the empire met the Iranian and Hellenistic world, Ashoka used the scripts and languages those subjects already knew.

At Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra in the north-west the rock edicts are cut not in Brahmi but in Kharoshthi, a script derived from Aramaic that runs from right to left. Further west, at Kandahar in Afghanistan, Ashoka's edicts appear in Greek and in Aramaic, including a famous bilingual Greek-and-Aramaic rock inscription, for the benefit of the Hellenistic and Iranian populations of the frontier. The choice of script thus maps the cultural geography of the empire.

The Decipherment of the Edicts and the Rediscovery of Ashoka

James Prinsep and the Reading of the Brahmi Script in 1837

What is the significance of the decipherment: for centuries the edicts stood unread, and recovering them was one of the great feats of Indian scholarship, the event that made Mauryan history knowable.

By the modern period the Brahmi script had been wholly forgotten, and the edicts could not be read. In 1837 the scholar James Prinsep, working in Calcutta, finally deciphered Brahmi and read the inscriptions. He found that their author called himself Devanampiya Piyadasi, the Beloved of the Gods, but the edicts he first read did not say who that king was. The decipherment opened the whole field, yet it left the central question of identity unanswered.

Identifying Piyadasi as Ashoka: The Maski Edict and the Chronicles

Distinguishing the proof of identity: the king of the edicts was finally named as Ashoka only when an edict was found that used both titles together.

The decisive evidence came from the Minor Rock Edict discovered at Maski in 1915, which calls the king Devanampiya Asoka, joining the title of the edicts to the personal name known from the texts. Later edicts at Gujarra, Nittur and Udegolam confirmed it. The identification agreed with the Sri Lankan Buddhist chronicles, the Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa, which remember the great emperor as Piyadasi. From these strands the Piyadasi of the inscriptions was fixed beyond doubt as the emperor Ashoka.

The Geographical Spread of the Edicts across the Empire

Mapping the Edict Sites from Afghanistan to the Deccan

What is the significance of the find-spots: because the edicts were meant to be read by subjects everywhere, their places of discovery draw the boundaries of the empire more reliably than any text.

The edict sites form a great arc across the subcontinent. In the far north-west they reach Kandahar in Afghanistan and Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra, marking the Hellenistic frontier. The rock edicts ring the periphery, from Girnar and Sopara on the west to Dhauli and Jaugada on the east coast, and down to Erragudi, Maski, Sannati and Brahmagiri in the south.

The pillar edicts cluster in the Gangetic heartland, at Topra, Meerut, Allahabad and the Lauriya pillars, with the commemorative pillar at Lumbini in the Himalayan foothills. The spread shows an empire that reached from the Hindu Kush to the Deccan.

The Edict Sites State by State

Distinguishing the sites and their locations: the precise pairing of an edict site with its modern state is a recurring Prelims test, so the leading sites are best memorised by region.

The table below lists the principal edict sites by class and by present-day location. Two pairings repay special care, because the examiner has turned questions on them: Jaugada is in Odisha, not Madhya Pradesh, and Kalsi is in Uttarakhand, not Karnataka.

UPSC Relevance and Exam Focus

Where Ashoka's Edicts Fit in the UPSC-CSE Syllabus

This topic belongs to General Studies Paper I: ancient Indian history and culture, and the edicts of Ashoka are among the most frequently examined areas of the whole ancient period.

For Prelims, hold the firm facts: there are fourteen Major Rock Edicts and seven Major Pillar Edicts; most edicts are in Prakrit and Brahmi, with Kharoshthi at Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra and Greek and Aramaic at Kandahar; the king is called Devanampiya Piyadasi, and only the Maski and Gujarra edicts name Asoka; James Prinsep deciphered Brahmi in 1837; and the site-to-state pairs, such as Dhauli and Jaugada in Odisha and Kalsi in Uttarakhand, are a recurring trap.

For Mains, the edicts are valuable as a primary source on Mauryan kingship, on the policy of Dhamma and on the administrative reach of the empire.

Recurring linked concepts an aspirant should keep in working memory:

• Major Rock Edicts: Fourteen edicts at the frontiers; Edicts II and XIII name the southern kingdoms.
• Major Pillar Edicts: Seven edicts on the polished pillars of the Gangetic plain.
• Scripts: Brahmi for most; Kharoshthi in the north-west; Greek and Aramaic at Kandahar.
• Decipherment: James Prinsep, 1837; the king styled Devanampiya Piyadasi.
• The name Asoka: Given only by the minor edicts at Maski and Gujarra.

A common Prelims trap is to mismatch an edict site with its state; remember that Jaugada is in Odisha and Kalsi in Uttarakhand. Another is to credit the famous Allahabad pillar inscription to Ashoka; the inscription asked about is usually Samudragupta's Prayaga Prashasti, cut on the same Ashokan pillar.

Sources and Further Reading

• NCERT, Ancient India (Our Pasts I), Ashoka, the Emperor Who Gave Up War (NCERT-inspired grounding)
• Wikipedia: Edicts of Ashoka
• Wikipedia: Major Rock Edicts
• Wikipedia: Pillars of Ashoka
• Wikipedia: Minor Rock Edicts
• Wikipedia: Brahmi script
• Wikipedia: James Prinsep
• Wikipedia: Maski
• Wikipedia: Maurya Empire
• UNESCO World Heritage: Lumbini, the Birthplace of the Lord Buddha (the Ashokan Rummindei pillar)
• UNESCO World Heritage: Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi (Ashokan pillar with the Schism Edict)