Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages c9.s2.t7.27

c9.s2.t7.27

Six inscriptions of the time of Aśoka in Aramaic and/or Greek have been found, some of them in recent years, in Afghanistan.¹⁰⁶ Another fragmentary Aramaic inscription, probably of Aśoka, was found in Taxila (Pakistan); see SI I.78–9. While these records do not, strictly speaking, fall within the linguistic range of this book, they are worthy of mention here, first of all because most of them are translations or at least free adaptations of Indic (Prakrit) originals; thus, for example, the Kandahār [II] Greek inscription is a rendering of portions of Aśokan rock edicts XII and XIII (*JA* 252, 137–57). Moreover, two of the Aramaic inscriptions, namely Pul-i-Darunta (*BSOAS* 13, 80–88) and Kandahār [III] (*JA* 254, 437–70) consist of phrase-by-phrase renderings of the original Prakrit texts transliterated into Aramaic script and accompanied by glosses in the Aramaic language; these inscriptions thus constitute, in effect, bilingual Prakrit and Aramaic documents.