1838.] Continuation of the Girnar inscriptions. 219 



VII. — On the Edicts of Piyadasi, or Asoka, the Buddhist monarch 

 of India, preserved on the Girnar rock in the Gujerat peninsula, 

 and on the Dhauli rock in Cuttack ; with the discovery of Ptole- 

 my's name therein. By James Prinsep, Secretary, As. Soc. fyc. 



[Read at the Meeting of the 4th April 1838.] 



In continuation of the discovery I had the pleasure, of bringing to the 

 notice of the Society at its last meeting, I am now enabled to announce 

 that the edicts in the ancient character from Gujerat do not confine 

 their mention of Greek sovereigns to Antiochus the ally of Asoka, 

 but that they contain an allusion equally authentic and distinct, to one 

 of the Ptolemies of Egypt/ The edict containing this highly 

 curious passage is in a mutilated condition and at the very end of the 

 inscription, which will account for its having hitherto escaped my atten- 

 tion. As I propose to lay before the Society a brief account of the 

 whole of the Girnar inscription I will do no more than mention the fact 

 at present, reserving the particulars until I come to the actual position 

 of the passage on the stone ; for there will be found, I hope, quite 

 enough of interest in the subject matter of the inscription throughout, 

 to allow my hearers to accompany me through a short analysis of the 

 whole, without urging me to pass at once to the point which must ne- 

 cessarily be most attractive to all who have been nurtured in the school 

 of western classical associations. 



I have already mentioned the fortunate discovery of a duplicate of 

 the Gujerat inscription, at Dhauli in Cuttack, 



The divided sentences, or as I shall for the present venture to call 

 them, the edicts, which are common to Girnar and to Dhauli are 

 eleven in number. From the first to the tenth they keep pace together : 

 the only difference being that while at Girnar each is surrounded by an 

 engraved line as a frame, at Dhauli the beginning of each edict is 

 marked by a short dash as will be seen in the accompanying plate. The 

 regular succession is then interrupted by three interpolations at Girnar ; 

 after which, the fourteenth edict of that series is found to correspond 

 with the eleventh or concluding one of the same set at Dhauli, 



The three missing edicts are more than compensated at Dhauli by 

 the introduction of two others not found at Girnar, one at the end 

 enclosed in a frame, and one on the left hand of the same rock on 

 a larger scale of sculpture : but both of these being of a totally differ- 

 ent purport and being quite unconnected with the rest, I shall postpone 

 for separate consideration. 



