Ashoka—The Search for India’s Lost Emperor

Author: Charles Allen
Publisher: The Overlook Press 2012

This is an expanded version of the “Buddha and the Sahibs” book. (There are more details in this book and if you are planning to buy “Buddha and the Sahibs” book, then I suggest buying this book instead.) I have been skip-reading this book for the same reason.

Here is how Prinsep deciphered the “Delhi 1” edicts using the Sanchi edicts.

Both in Sanskrit and Pali the verb “to give” was දාන and the noun “gift” or “donation” දානං, sharing the same Indo-European root as the Latin “donare” (to give) and “donus” (gift).  This led Prinsep to “the speedy recognition of the word දානං, teaching me the very two letters (of the Ashoka-Brahmi or Brahmi No 1) d and n.  The snake-like squiggle represented the sound “දා”, the inverted T the sound “න”, and the inverted T with the single dot the sound “නං”.  My acquaintance with ancient alphabets had become so familiar that most of the remaining letters in the present example could be named at once on re-inspection.  In the course of few minutes I thus became possessed of the whole alphabet, which I tested by applying it to the inscription on the Delhi column.

The word “laja” initially threw both Prinsep and රතනපාල, until they realized that this was “the license of a loose vernacular orthography” and the intended word was “raja”.  (See the attached image as a comment.)

Here’s the Turnour contribution in detail. (This was sent to Prinsep.)

I have made a most important discovery.  You will find in the introduction to my Epitome that a valuable collection of Pali works was brought back to Ceylon from Siam, by George Nodaris, modliar (chief of the cinnamon department, and then a Buddhist priest) in 1812.  This collection of Pali texts included a copy of the Island Chronicle, the original chronicle from which the later Great Dynastic Chronicle took its earliest historical material, but in a less corrupted version than that upon which Turnour had based his translation—and with a crucial differences.  While casually turning the leaves of the manuscript I had hit upon an entirely new passage relating to the identity of Piyadasi … who, the grandson of Chandragupta, and own son of Bindusara, was at the time Viceroy of Ujjayani.  

King Devanmpriya Piyadasi of the Feroz Shar Lat inscription (Delhi 1) was not King Devanampiathissa of Lanka, as Prinsep had assumed.  He was his Indian contemporary Ashka Maurya.

For your information: 

Charles Allen had conversations with පූජ්‍ය වස්කඩුවේ මහින්දවංස මහ නායක හිමි, elder and abbot of Buddhist monastery of රාජගුරු ශ්‍රී සුභූති මහා විහාර situated beside the sea and the road between Colombo and Galle in Sri Lanka.  There he was shown some of the extensive correspondence that had taken place between Venerable Waskaduwe’s predecessor the distinguished Pali scholar Venerable Subhuthi and three generations of British Orienalists, beginning with letters written by Sir Alexander Cunningham from the Bharhut excavation site in 1861, continuing with letters from Robert Childers from 1870s into 1890s, and ending with letters from Vincent Smith, sent from Bihar in 1898.