The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c29.8.2

v1.c29.8.2

The practice of carving Buddhist sentiments in this manner on conspicuous objects was afterwards to receive a very wide extension, as is still visible in Tibet, in Central Asia, in China, and throughout the Buddhist world. During the following two years, the thirteenth and fourteenth, Açoka's activity must have been at its height. He issued no fewer than sixteen missives, of which fourteen are found engraved, in one corpus, in places as far distant as the extremities of his empire, at Girnār in Kāthiāwār, at Mānsehra and Shāhbāzgarhī in the Punjab, and twelve of the same with two others at Dhauli and Jaugada in Orissa². In these records, which seem to have been engraved in his fourteenth year, Açoka gives an account of the administrative and other measures which he had adopted. He had been active in causing wells to be dug by the roads, in providing medical aid for men and animals (perhaps a reference to animal hospitals, now known as *Panjroles*), and in propagating medical or useful plants; and this not only in his own dominions, but in those of the neighbouring, independent and quasi-independent, states of South India and the north-west frontier, nay, even as far as the Greek kingdom of Antiochus and beyond. Then he had made regulations restricting the slaughter of animals for food and especially on occasions of festivals and public shows.