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Ashoka pillar edicts
The Ashoka pillar edicts are sandstone pillars and pillar inscriptions erected across the Mauryan Empire by Emperor Ashoka in the mid-3rd century BCE…
Timeline
- c. -250–-242Mauryan Empire · IndiaAshoka erected sandstone pillars throughout the empire, with edict texts carved on the shafts, conveying the concept of Dhamma governance and moral precepts to his subjects in a unified script.
- c. -242–-232Sarnath · Uttar PradeshSome pillar edicts explicitly advocate respect for all religions, the dispatch of Dhamma preachers, and the honoring of Buddhist sacred sites, reflecting Ashoka's policy of promoting Buddhism and the spread of Dhamma through inscriptions.
- c. -232Northern India · IndiaAshoka's pillars survive as material remains, and their inscriptions have become key archaeological evidence for deciphering ancient Indian scripts and reconstructing Ashoka's history.
Sources
- Inscriptions of Aśoka (Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. I) — E. Hultzsch (1925)
- Romila Thapar, Aśoka and the Decline of the Mauryas — Romila Thapar (1961)