224 Inscription in the old character on the [MaUCh, 



ferring to the original I would not venture even to make the very 

 trifling alteration which this reading would require. 



I may here notice, though with some misgiving of the reading upon 

 which it depends, that the fourteenth paragraph seems to contain the 

 explanation of the occurrence of a duplicate of the Gujerat inscription 

 in Cuttack ; or at least it shews a connection between the two 

 countries, in the words pachhd adhanuladhesu kalingesu — * afterwards 

 in the Kalinga provinces not to be obtained by wealth !' while with 

 a kind of reciprocity the Cuttack version of the fifth tablet as we shall 

 have occasion to notice again, alludes to Sulathika or Surashtra as 

 one of the provinces into which missionaries were to be deputed. 



But there is another passage in this Gujerat edict more calculated to 

 rivet our attention than all that I have briefly alluded to above* or even 

 than the mention of Antiochus in the second or medical edict. 

 Although we might be agreeably surprised at finding the name of a Greek 

 prince of Syria preserved in the proclamation of a Hindu sovereign, 

 there were circumstances of alliance and connection in the histories of 

 the Macedonian provinces and of India which immediately explained 

 away the wonder and satisfied us as to the likelihood of the fact ; — but I 

 am now about to produce evidence that Asoka's acquaintance with geo- 

 graphy was not limited to Asia, and that his expansive benevolence 

 towards living creatures extended, at least in intention, to another quar- 

 ter of the globe ; — that his religious ambition sought to apostolize Egypt ; 

 — and that we must hereafter look for traces of the introduction of Bud- 

 dhism into the fertile regions of the Nile, so prolific of metaphysical dis- 

 cussions from the earliest ages ! 



The line to which I allude is the fifth from the bottom. Something- 

 is lost at its commencement, but the letters extant are with few excep- 

 tions quite distinct and as follows : — ■ 



iLFSH" d~A±d GT TH AJ'tfld 3c A +ld 8/fd 

 . . . >D GlT^d rbi A >&!-&** &-tflrWfc; HI A 

 AlJLA G'fU 



. . . Yona rdjd paran cha, tena Chaptdro rdjano, Turamayo cha, 

 Gongakena cha, Maga cha, 



idhdpara de (se) su cha savata Devanampiyasa dhnmm&nusastin 



anuvatare yata pdn^ati (? dharmasastin anuvartate yatra padyate.) 



" And the Greek king besides, by whom the Chaptd kings, Ptole- 

 maios, and Gongakenos (?) and Magas," — (here we may supply the 

 connection) ; — « have been induced to permit that — " 



