Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s15.39

c12.s15.39

The duplicate copies were evidently written on leather or brick as the one discovered by Koldeway suggests. This was also the arrangement made by Aśoka for the circulation of his edicts (R.E. XIV, Kaliṅga Edict I, P. E. VII). The very idea indeed of recording royal orders and directions on such permanent material as rocks (and pillars) seems to have been inspired by Achaemenian practice. In respect of the form of the Aśokan inscriptions Senart long ago pointed out their strong resemblance with that of the inscriptions of the Achaemenian kings. The edicts of Aśoka begin with the usual formula *Devanampiya Piyadasi evamāha* which according to Senart ‘is an absolutely isolated example in Indian epigraphy....In the entire series of the inscriptions of the Achaemenides, from Darius to Artaxerxes Ochus, the phrase *thatey Darayavaush Kshayathiya*, “thus saith the king Darius,” or its equivalent *thatey Kshayarsha*, etc., inevitably forms the preamble of each of the proclamations. In both cases, this phrase in the third person is immediately succeeded by the use of the first person, and we are still further justified in drawing attention to this curious fact that, again in both cases the same word—*dipi*, *lipi*—is used to designate the inscriptions, and that, as we have seen, we are led to admit, on altogether independent grounds, that the Indian form of the word was originally borrowed from Persia.’ Aśoka’s peculiar way of exhorting people to follow the laws of Dhamma also seems to have been adopted from Achaemenian practice initiated by Darius in his inscriptions (Behistun and Naksh-i-Rustam inscriptions).²