220 Inscription in the old character on the [Marcs, 



That the edicts are of different dates is proved by the actual mention 

 of the year of Piyadasi's reign in which several of them were pub- 

 lished. Two of them are dated in the tenth* and two in the twelfth 

 year after his abhisek or consecration, which we learn from the Hon'ble 

 Mr. Turnour's Pali history did not take place until the fourth year 

 of his succession to the throne of his father, Bindusaro. Only one 

 of the pillar edicts is dated in the twelfth year ; the remainder, gene- 

 rally, bearing the date of the twenty-seventh year, — and one contain- 

 ing both, as if contradicting at the later epoch what had been published 

 fifteen years before. From this evidence we must Conclude that the 

 Gujerat and Cuttack inscriptions have slightly the advantage in anti- 

 quity over the lats of Delhi and Allahabad : but again in the order of 

 sequence we find edicts of the twelfth year preceding those of the tenth, 

 and we learn expressly from the fourteenth edict that the whole were 

 engraven at one time. Their preservation on rocks and pillars there- 

 fore must be regarded as resulting from an after order, when some 

 re-arrangement was probably made according to the relative importance 

 of the subjects. 



The copy that emanated from the palace must however have been 

 modified according to the vernacular idiom of the opposite parts of 

 India to which it was transmitted, for there is a marked and peculiar dif- 

 ference both in the grammar and in the alphabet of the two texts which 

 demands a more lengthened examination than I can afford to introduce 

 in this place. I shall however presently recur to this subject, and at 

 least give the explanation of those new characters which I have been 

 obliged to cut in order to print the Gimar text, and which in fact 

 render the alphabet as complete as that of the modern Pali, wanting 

 only the two additional sibilants of the Devanagari, and some of the 

 vowels. But before doing so it will be more regular to introduce the 

 documents themselves, with such a translation as I am capable of offer- 

 ing. A very few words of exordium will suffice to give us a general 

 comprehension of their purport. 



Contents of the Edicts. 



The first edict prohibits the sacrifice of animals both for food and 

 in religious assemblies, and enjoins more attention to the practice of 

 this first of Buddhistic virtues than seems to have been paid to it even 

 by the raja himself, at least prior to the sixteenth year of his reign. 



* I use these terms as more consonant to our idiom, the correct translation 

 is " having been consecrated ten and twelve years," so that the actual period 

 is one year latter in our mode of reckoning. 



