Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions c8.s1.46

c8.s1.46

The second edict in our inscriptions is as follows: “Thus says the Beloved of the gods:—Obedience should be rendered to mother and father. So also regard for living creatures should be enforced. Truth should be spoken. These virtues of the sacred law should be practised. So also the teacher should be honoured by the pupil, and towards relations due respect indeed should be shown. This is the ancient standard (of piety),—this conduces to long life, and this should thus be done.” There is a striking resemblance here to the fifth commandment of the Mosaic code. The whole tone indeed of the Edicts of Aśōka is both higher than and quite different from that of any other inscriptions found in India. Solicitude for the welfare here and hereafter of all his subjects, high and low, is manifest throughout, and it extended even to peoples beyond his boundaries in an all-embracing humanity. His concern for the latter was shown practically by the despatch of missionaries to bordering lands. Among other places, it is of special interest to note that he sent a *thēra* named Mahadeva to Mahisa-maṇḍala, the country round Mysore¹—which must therefore have been a place of importance even at that period—and a *thēra* named Rakkhita to Vanavāsi, known as Banavāsi, on the north-west of the State.