41. The Date of Asoka’s Coronation. 
By KaAsui-PrasAp JAyaswaL, M.A. (Oxon.). 
The date of the coronation of Asoka is the mio 2it starting 
point in the sip of India before the rise of t ptas 
for the evidence on the point is of the most voliable. kind. The 
hypothetical dats for the accession of Chandra-Gupta ee ae 
which is often taken as the starting date is based m 
surmises, and is far less reliable than the date which we can 5 ie 
from the data connected with the coronation year of Asoka. 
As to the date for the latter event there are at present two 
opinions: according to the one the abhisheka took place in 
264? B.c. and according to the other in 269 B.c.,° both assuming 
321 B.c. as the year of the accession of Chandra-Gupta Maurya. 
The difference between the two results partly from a difference 
Puranas giving twenty-five years, while the Mahavaméa, 
twenty-eight) and ti! from the tentative calculation under- 
lying the latter view.* 4 us now see whether it is possible to 
have a more definite ing. 
The undated seakoaiet of Asoka, which is numbered xiii 
by scholars and which is substantively the last among the rock- 
edicts, gives us the information that when the “edict was 
Antiochus had come to the throne in 261 3.c.6 The date of the 
edict must, therefore, fall between these two years. 
The date of the edict is the date of the publication of the 
complete series of the rock-edicts, for edict xiii is the conclud- 
ing? substantive part of the series, and at the same time it is 
321 B.c. according to V. Smith (Early pag of Tedée; 2nd Ed., 
Pp. 39); between. 320 and 315 8.0. according to Kern (Manual of In d. 
Es p. l 
hys Davids, Encyclopaedia Britannica (llth ed.), II, 764; 
Fleet, ibid , XIV, 623; Geiger, Mahavaméa (1912), xxxiii. 
’ V. Smith, ‘boobs (1910), p 
4 Cf. «*The thirteenth Rook Edict ag mig the synchronism 
Asoka with five Hellenistic kings... date at which ail 
i ere alive together . The ro icts belong to 
the thirteenth and nt coe years of the reign of rec oned fr 
rites othe ene 960-40 is probably nearly correct.’? V. Sm ith, Asoka, 
ise Bevan, House o/ Seleucus, i uate 178. 
6 Rawlinson, Parthia, p. 45. Bevan , Enc. Bri., h ed., xxiv, 604. 
1 The portion numbered ‘ XIV’ by scholars is aaa a colophon to 
the series ; the series really ends with edict ‘ XIII.” 
