Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s1.t2: 3.1.2 The Prakrits of the Aśokan inscriptions
Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c8.s1.t2
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3.1.2 The Prakrits of the Aśokan inscriptions
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Grammatical descriptions: E. Hultzsch, *Inscriptions of Aśoka*, lvi–cxxxi; J. Bloch, *Les Inscriptions d'Asoka*, 43–88.
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In general, the Prakrits of the Aśokan inscriptions (see 4.³.1.1) represent an early stage of development of MIA, in which, for example, the voicing and elision of intervocalic consonants are only occasional and sporadic, and some archaic features are preserved which are lost in later Prakrits, such as *ātmanepada* verb forms of the present tense (e.g., *karote*, Girnār IX.1–3) and the present participle (*vijinamane* [*sic*], Kālsī XIII.36). Moreover, the resolution of consonantal groups by assimilation or epenthesis (*svarabhakti*) is less advanced, especially in the western and northwestern dialects, than in later literary and inscriptional Prakrits. In these respects, then, the Aśokan Prakrits on the whole (and especially the western dialect of the Girnār and Bombay-Sopārā rock edicts) more closely resemble Pāli than any other of the literary forms of MIA.
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Overall, the Aśokan inscriptions can be said to comprise three main dialects:² the eastern, the western, and the northwestern.
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² Some writers, e.g., Sukumar Sen (*A Comparative Grammar of Middle Indo-Aryan* [Poona: Linguistic Society of India, 1960], 10–11), posit a fourth dialect, the "Middle Eastern," for some of the rock edicts. But on the whole it is preferable to consider the languages of these texts, which show a mixture of eastern and western characteristics, as essentially the eastern dialect with sporadic admixture of westernisms, rather than as a distinct dialect.
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3.1.2.1 The eastern Aśokan dialect
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Among the three Aśokan dialects the eastern dialect³ clearly predominates, as it was the local language of the imperial capital at Pāṭaliputra (whence it is sometimes referred to as the "Chancellery Language"). The original versions of the edicts were drawn up in this dialect, to be translated later into the other dialects where deemed necessary. The majority of the Aśokan inscriptions, including all the pillar edicts and minor rock edicts (MRE),⁴ as well as the rock edicts at Kālsī, Dhaulī, Jaugaḍa, and Erraguḍi, are in this dialect, and in some of them it is obviously being used far beyond its original geographical range.
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³ For a specimen of this dialect see Appendix, no. 1 (Rummindeī minor pillar edict).
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⁴ Though some of the MREs, especially those in the south, show an admixture of western forms, e.g., in preferring *r* to *l*; see n. 2.
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The distinctive features of the eastern dialect include:
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1. The three sibilants of Sanskrit are represented by *s*.⁵
2. The dialect has only *l* for Sanskrit *r* and *l*; e.g., *lājā* = *rājā*.
3. The Sanskrit nasals *ñ*, *ṇ*, and *n* all become *n*.
4. Sanskrit *kṣ* becomes *kh*.
5. Consonantal groups are subject to resolution by *svarabhakti* more frequently than in the other dialects.
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⁵ Rock edicts X–XIII at Kālsī show all three sibilants used indiscriminately (e.g., X.27 has both *yaso* and *yaṣo* for Sanskrit *yaśas-*). Though this peculiarity has never been fully explained, it is evidently a matter of scribal confusion rather than a true dialect feature. The retroflex and palatal sibilants also occur occasionally in the minor rock edicts, sometimes with etymological justification (e.g., Maski 1. 2, *vaṣāni* = Skt. *varṣāṇi*).
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6. Final *-as* of Sanskrit (as in the nominative sing. masc. of noun stems in *a*-) becomes *-e*.
7. The locative sing. masc./neut. ends in *-si* (for *-ssi*).
8. The present participle *ātmanepada* often ends in *-mīna* (e.g., *pāyamīnā*, Delhi-Toprā V.8).
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The main features of this dialect—the predominance of *l*, the nominative masculine in *-e*, the loss of *ñ* and *ṇ*, and the sibilant *s*⁶—accord on the whole with the later literary Prakrit known as Ardha-Māgadhī, whence it has been called by Lüders and others⁷ “Old Ardha-Māgadhī.”
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3.1.2.2 The western Aśokan dialect
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The western dialect appears only in the rock edicts of Girnār and the Bombay-Sopārā fragments. Its characteristics include:
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1. The whose graphic peculiarities—particularly the absence of notation of vowel quantity—tend to obscure some of the features of the language. The principal distinctive features of the dialect include:
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1. The three sibilants are maintained, generally as in Sanskrit (but see also item 5).
2. Both *r* and *l* are retained as in Sanskrit.
3. The Sanskrit nasals *ñ*, *ṇ*, and *n* are retained.
4. Sanskrit *kṣ* is apparently retained in the form of a special character (𐨮; see 2.3.4), variously transliterated as *kṣ*, *ch*, *ch’*, and so on, whose precise phonetic value is uncertain.¹¹
5. Many consonantal clusters are retained, especially those with *r*; but the latter are frequently subject to metathesis, for example, in *dhrama* = *dharma* and *krama* = *karma*.¹² Special developments include *ṣy* > *ś* (e.g., *manuśa* = *manuṣya*, Shāhbāzgaṛhī II.4; cf. item 8) and *sv* and *sm* (in the locative sing. ending) > *sp* (e.g., *spagraṃ* = *svargam*, Shāhbāzgaṛhī VI.16).
6. Final *-as* in Sanskrit is represented by *-o* at Shāhbāzgaṛhī, but at Mānsehrā generally by *-e* (see later remarks).
7. The locative sing. ends in *-e* or *-spi* (<* *-smin*; cf. item 5).
8. The future tense affix is *-iśa-* (< *-iṣya-* [see item 5]; e.g., *vaḍhiśati* = *vardhiṣyati*, Shāhbāzgaṛhī IV.9).
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¹¹ H. W. Bailey (BSOAS 11, 1946, 774) suggests the pronunciations */ṭṣ/* or */ṭṣ’/*.
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¹² This metathesis was formerly thought by some (notably Senart; IA 21, 1892, 148–50) to represent merely an orthographic peculiarity of Aśokan Kharoṣṭhī, as seems to be the case with the reversed conjuncts noted in the Girnār Brāhmī inscriptions (see n. 9). But it has been pointed out by Grierson (JRAS 1913, 682–3) and others since him (see discussion and references in von Hinüber, *Das ältere Mittelindisch*, 28–9) that such metatheses are characteristic of the Dardic languages of the northwest to the present day, and that such forms in Aśokan (and in later Gāndhārī/Kharoṣṭhī) inscriptions therefore must reflect actual dialect features.
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The dialects of the two northwestern sets of rock edicts diverge in several respects, notably in the treatment of final *-as* noted earlier (item 6). Thus as the equivalent of Sanskrit *rājñaḥ* (genitive), Shāhbāzgaṛhī has *raño* but Mānsehrā *rajine*, reminiscent of the eastern form *lājine*. Some dialectal peculiarities of Mānsehrā have thus sometimes been dismissed as "Māgadhisms," but this may not be the case; later Gāndhārī/Kharoṣṭhī inscriptions also vary between *-o* and *-e* (CII 2.1, cxii–cxiii), and recent research into the historical grammar of Gāndhārī¹³ has shown that the notation of final vowels is highly inconsistent in Gāndhārī generally.¹⁴
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¹³ Notably G. Fussman, "Gāndhārī écrite, Gāndhārī parlée," 473 and 479–80.
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¹⁴ See also the comments of Brough in GD 115.
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All in all, the Aśokan inscriptions give a broad view of the dialect spectrum of MIA vernaculars in the third century B.C. But it must also be understood that they do not provide anything like a real dialect map of the time. For the geographical distribution of the dialects—especially of the eastern dialect—can hardly correspond with linguistic reality; the eastern dialect was obviously not the mother tongue of residents of the far north and the central south, though it was used for inscriptions (Kālsī, Erraguḍi, etc.) in those regions. Moreover, the languages as they are presented in the inscriptions are surely not exact renditions of the contemporary vernaculars. It has been suggested,¹⁵ for example, that such features as the retention of consonantal clusters reflect orthographic conservatism and the influence of Sanskrit, and that the actual stage of phonetic development of MIA in Aśoka's time could have been further advanced than it would seem from the inscriptions.
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¹⁵ See for example Senart, IA 21, 1892, 146–8.