21, Notes on some Edicts of Asoka. 
By Harir Krisuna Des. 
Rock Edict VI. 
As is well known, the purport of this inscription is to em- . 
phasise Asoka’s readiness to do work conducive to the people’s 
welfare almost at any time and place. It quotes the king’s 
— directing the Reporters to report to him on such work even 
n he is eating or taking a stroll in his garden or lounging 
in his j inner apartments, etc. The concluding portion of the 
order runs as follows at Girnar :— 
ya ca kimct mukhato anapayami svayam dapakam va sravapakam 
va ya va puna mahamatresu acayikam aropitam bhavati taya 
athaya vivado nijhatt va samto parisayam anamtaram pativedeta- 
* vyam me sarvatra sarve kale. 
Now, how should we pe, eae dapakam and sravapakam ? 
It might seem reasonable at first sight to take these express- 
ions as agreeing with ya(m), and the construction seems to fit 
in with the idea that a dapaka order is to be distinguished from a 
svamukhajna; the latter standing for the king’s order received 
directly from his own mouth, the former involving the employ- 
ment of an intermediary called dataka in later inscriptions. 
And a parallel explanation for sravapaka cou framed in 
view of thestatement eta ca sarva sravita occurring at the close 
same Pillar Edict we read that t the king caused “ roligocn” 
s ha L). he 
officers employed for this purpose would be best described 
as sravapakas or sravakas.? The general sense of the passage, 
1 The word dapaka occurs in the Arthagastra of Kautilya in the sense 
of a person vee payment. See the text of the 1919 ed. of the 
gheraeretiet p. 6 
onders if sravaka is used here in the special sense attached 
to the mene in Buddhist literature. 
