Edicts of Ashoka

The Edicts of Ashoka are inscriptions commissioned by Mauryan emperor Ashoka in the third century BCE. They record his policies, moral teachings, and administration, often in local languages and scripts.

Ashoka: Ashoka was a Mauryan emperor who ruled much of the Indian subcontinent in the third century BCE. He commissioned the inscriptions to communicate policies and ethical teachings across his empire.
Major Rock Edicts: The Major Rock Edicts are a numbered series of Ashokan proclamations carved on prominent rocks. They contain some of the fullest surviving statements of Ashoka’s policies and moral program.
Kalinga War: The Kalinga War was Ashoka’s conquest of the eastern Indian kingdom of Kalinga in the third century BCE. Ashoka’s remorse over the war is explicitly expressed in the Thirteenth Rock Edict.
Thirteenth Rock Edict: The Thirteenth Rock Edict is an Ashokan proclamation describing the suffering caused by the Kalinga conquest and Ashoka’s remorse. It gives the clearest account of conquest’s human cost and the ruler’s response.
James Prinsep: James Prinsep was a British scholar who deciphered the Brahmi script in the 1830s. His decipherment made the edicts’ inscriptions readable to modern historians.
Maurya Empire: The Maurya Empire was an ancient South Asian empire founded by Chandragupta Maurya and centered in the Gangetic plain. Its territory and administration shaped where the inscriptions appeared and what they addressed.
Major Pillar Edicts: The Major Pillar Edicts are a series of proclamations carved on Ashokan stone pillars. Their monumental placement made royal messages visible at important sites.
Kalinga: Kalinga was an ancient kingdom on the eastern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Edicts at Dhauli and Jaugada address the region Ashoka had conquered.
Bilingual Edict of Kandahar: The Bilingual Edict of Kandahar is an Ashokan inscription written in Greek and Aramaic. It demonstrates how Ashoka’s message could be adapted for a multilingual frontier population.
Brahmi decipherment: Brahmi decipherment is the nineteenth-century scholarly process that established how to read the ancient script. Reading the edicts revealed Ashoka as their named author and connected scattered monuments.

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