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;<| ; the founder of the Mauryan dynasty, whose date 315:
B. C. gives us a starting- point, wherefrom to reconstruct a rough outline of the history of early India between^ the sixth and third century B. C. The reign of Asoka • j forms to us an undisputed part of Indian history. His edicts
\ ; are inscriptions on rocks and pillars, the most invaluable
j from linguistic, religious and political points of view. A
,<T word about them will not be out of place. These edicts
; published in the tenth and twelfth years of Asoka's reign (253,
I ) and 251 B. C.) are found in distinct places in the extreme
{ 1 | East and West of India. As revealed in these engraved'
! J records, the spoken dialect was essentially the same
j ' throughout the wide and fertile regions lying between the
s.| Vindhya and the Himalayas and between the mouths of
the Indus and the Ganges. The language appears in three ; L, varieties, which may be named the Punjabi, the Ujjaini
and the Magadhi, These point to a transitional stage ,; between Sanskrit and Pali. " The language of the inscrip-
^ tions," says Princep n although necessarily that of their
; ; » date and probably that in which the first propagators of
j:j Buddhism expounded their doctrines, seems, to have been-
the spoken language of the people of Upper India than &. form of speech peculiar to a class of religionists or a sacred language, and its use in the edicts of Piyadasi, although-incompatible with their Buddhistic origin, cannot be accepted as a conclusive proof that they originated from & | peculiar form of religious belief." The mention of thev
l < naj&es of some contemporary foreign kings as Ptolemy,,.
Aatiochus and Aatigonus gives strength to the chronological data afforded by independent sources. The progress-
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