piyadassi

Updated: May 21, 2025

Between thirty and forty of these inscriptions have been discovered, scattered over nearly the whole of India, and composed in vernacular dialects allied to Pali . Many of them are dated by the year of the King's reign and all announce themselves as the enactments of Piyadassi, the name Asoka being rarely used . They comprise, besides some fourteen single edicts , two series, namely: Fourteen Rock Edicts, dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth years of Asoka's reign and found inscribed in seven places but the recensions differ and some do not include all fourteen edicts.

Sir Charles Eliot - Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1