ASOKAN STUDIES BY D.C. SIRCAR (INDIAN MUSEUM, KOLKATA) (HARDCOVER)

The present , volume was intended to embody Dr. D.C. Sircar’s studies of Asokan edicts published on different occasions, but suitably edited for it; however, it has actually come to be a valuable Supplement to the monumental work of E. Hultzsch, entitled Inscriptions of Asoka (Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. I, revised edition ), 1925, in which all the Brahmi and Kharostihi inscriptions of the Maurya king discovered in the Indian sub-continent till then were ably edited. After 1925, new Asokan records in Brahmi have been found at twelve sites in India , and out of them, the Gavimath and Palkigundu (Raichur Distric, Karnataka) versions of MRE I were published by R. L. Turner while sircar studied the remaining Rock and Pillar edicts discovered at Ahraura, Armaravati, Bahapur (Delhi), Erragudi, Gujarra, Nittur, Panguraria, Rajula-Mandagiri, Sopara and Udegolam in different parts of India-in Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh. He has also written on some of the Greek and Aramaic records of Asoka, which have been discovered in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The present volume not only contains the large number of his studies mentioned above, but also a dissertation on the Maski version of MRE I which was already included in Hultzch’s work as well the texts of the Gavimath and Palkigundu copies of MRE I studied by Turner and the Bairat, Rupnath and Sahasram versions of the same edict and also the Brahmagiri, Jatinga-Ramesvara and Siddapura copies of MRE I-II studied by others including Hultzsch. The two unique features of the book are that this is the first work in which the recently discovered Panguraria, Nittur and Udegolam edicts find a place and that the Synoptical tExts appended to the volume bring together seventeen versions of MRE I and seven version of MRE II for facilitating their comparative study by the students of epigraphy, linguistics and history.