History · Ch 2 — Kings, Farmers and Towns — Early States and Economies
Historical evidence from inscriptions
Historical evidence from inscriptions
The first thing to understand about inscriptions is that they are not straightforward records. Epigraphists and historians have to work like detectives, piecing together clues from the language, style, and content of the text. The name of the ruler, Asoka, is never mentioned in the inscription given as Source 10. Instead, the ruler uses two titles: devanampiya, often translated as “beloved of the gods,” and piyadassi, meaning “pleasant to behold.” The name Asoka does appear in some other inscriptions that also carry these same titles. By comparing all these inscriptions and finding that they match in content, style, language, and palaeography (the study of ancient writing), epigraphists have concluded that all of them were issued by the same ruler — Asoka.
Asoka makes a striking claim in this inscription: that earlier rulers had no arrangements to receive reports. This is not a fact to be accepted blindly. Historians must constantly assess statements made in inscriptions to judge whether they are true, plausible, or exaggerations. If you consider the political history of the subcontinent before Asoka, you might question whether this claim is entirely accurate. The point is that inscriptions are not neutral records; they are shaped by the ruler’s intentions and perspective.
You may also notice that there are words within brackets in the translation. Epigraphists add these to make the meaning of sentences clear, but this has to be done very carefully to ensure that the intended meaning of the author is not changed. A single wrong insertion can alter the entire sense of the order.
The inscription records the king’s own words: “Thus speaks king Devanampiya Piyadassi.” It then describes the new arrangement for receiving reports. The term pativedaka has been translated as “reporter.” But the function of a pativedaka was very different from what we generally associate with reporters today. A pativedaka was an official who reported directly to the king about the affairs of the people at all times, anywhere — whether the king was eating, in the inner apartment, in the bedroom, in the cow pen, being carried in a palanquin, or in the garden. The king would then dispose of the affairs of the people everywhere. This was a system of direct royal oversight, not news-gathering for public dissemination.
Historians have to make other assessments as well. Even if a king’s orders were inscribed on natural rocks near cities or important routes of communication, would passers-by have stopped to read them? Most people were probably not literate. Did everybody throughout the subcontinent understand the Prakrit used in Pataliputra? Would the orders of the king have been followed? Answers to such questions are not always easy to find. The inscription itself does not tell us whether its message reached or influenced the people it was meant for. …
Source 10 — The orders of the king. An Asokan inscription:
Thus speaks king Devanampiya Piyadassi: In the past, there were no arrangements for disposing affairs, nor for receiving regular reports. But I have made the following (arrangement). Pativedakas should report to me about the affairs of the people at all times, anywhere, whether I am eating, in the inner apartment, in the bedroom, in the cow pen, being carried (possibly in a palanquin), or in the garden. And I will dispose of the affairs of the people everywhere.
Note that the name Asoka is not used here; the ruler is named only by his titles — devanampiya ("beloved of the gods") and piyadassi ("pleasant to behold"). …
Source 11 — The anguish of the king. An Asokan inscription records the conquest of Kalinga (present-day coastal Orissa) in the eighth year of the king's reign. The text states that a very large number of people were carried away or lost their lives in the campaign — figures the inscription gives in the hundreds of thousands. It then says that afterwards Devanampiya devoted himself to an intense study of Dhamma, to the love of Dhamma, and to instructing the people in Dhamma, expressing deep regret for the suffering that any conquest of an unconquered country brings. …