Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription

Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription/
(Kandahar Edict of Ashoka)

Bilingual inscription (Greek and Aramaic) by king Ashoka, discovered in Kandahar.
Material	Rock
Size	H55xW49.5cm
Writing	Greek and Aramaic
Created	circa 258 BC
Period/culture	3rd Century BC
Discovered	31°37′00.66N 65°39′52.97E
Place	Chehel Zina, Kandahar, Afghanistan
Present location	Kabul Museum, Afghanistan

Location of the Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription in Afghanistan.

The Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription, (also Kandahar Edict of Ashoka, sometimes "Chehel Zina Edict"), is a famous bilingual edict in Greek and Aramaic, proclaimed and carved in stone by the Indian Maurya Empire ruler Ashoka around 258 BC. It was discovered in 1958. It is considered as one of the several "Minor Rock Inscriptions" of Ashoka, by opposition to his "Major Rock Edicts" which contain portions or the totality of his Edicts from 1 to 14. Two edicts in Afghanistan have been found with Greek inscriptions, one of these being this bilingual edict in Greek language and Aramaic, the other being the Kandahar Greek Inscription in Greek only. This bilingual edict was found on a rock on the mountainside of Chehel Zina (also Chilzina, or Chil Zena, "Forty Steps"), in the vicinity of Kandahar, which forms the western natural bastion of Old Kandahar, or Alexandria Arachosia, Kandahar’s Old City. The Edict is still in place on the mountainside, and a cast is visible in Kabul Museum. In the Edict, Ashoka advocates the adoption of "Piety" (using the Greek term Eusebeia for Dharma) to the Greek community.

Background

Greek communities lived in the northwest of the Mauryan empire, currently in Pakistan, notably ancient Gandhara near the current Pakistani capital of Islamabad, and in the region of Gedrosia, nowadays in Southern Afghanistan, following the conquest and the colonization efforts of Alexander the Great around 323 BC. These communities therefore seem to have been still significant in the area of Afghanistan during the reign of Ashoka, about 70 years after Alexander.

Content

Chil Zena ("40 steps") complex, offering a commanding view of Kandahar, and on the mountainside of which the bilingual edict is carved. Chil Zena commands the entrance to the city of Kandahar when coming from the west.

The Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription was located at the edge of the Indian realm, near the border with the Greco-Bactrian kingdom and Ai-Khanoum.

Ashoka proclaims his faith, 10 years after the violent beginning of his reign, and affirms that living beings, human or animal, cannot be killed in his realm. In the Hellenistic part of the Edict, he translates the Dharma he advocates by "Piety" εὐσέβεια, Eusebeia, in Greek. The usage of Aramaic reflect the fact that Aramaic (the so-called Official Aramaic) had been the official language of the Achaemenid Empire which had ruled in those parts until the conquests of Alexander the Great. The Aramaic is not purely Aramaic, but seems to incorporate some elements of Iranian. According to D.D.Kosambi, the Aramaic is not an exact translation of the Greek, and it seems rather that both were translated separately from an original text in Magadhi, the common official language of India at the time, used on all the other Edicts of Ashoka in Indian language, even in such linguistically distinct areas as Kalinga. It is written in Aramaic alphabet.

This inscription is actually rather short and general in content, compared to most Major Rock Edicts of Ashoka, including the other inscription in Greek of Ashoka in Kandahar, the Kandahar Greek Edict of Ashoka, which contains long portions of the 12th and 13th edicts, and probably contained much more since since it was cut off at the beginning and at the end.

Implications

The proclamation of this Edict in Kandahar is usually taken as proof that Ashoka had control over that part of Afghanistan, presumably after Seleucos had ceded this territory to Chandragupta Maurya in their 305 BC peace agreement. The Edict also shows the presence of a sizable Greek population in the area, but it also shows the lingering importance of Aramaic, several decades after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire. At the same epoch, the Greeks were firmly established in the newly created Greco-Bactrian kingdom under the reign of Diodotus I, and particularly in the border city of Ai-Khanoum, not far away in the northern part of Afghanistan.

Transcription

Greek (transliteration)

1. δέκα ἐτῶν πληρη[....]ων βασι[λ]εὺς
2. Πιοδασσης εὐσέβεια[ν ἔδ]ε[ι]ξεν τοῖς ἀν-
3. θρώποις, καὶ ἀπὸ τούτου εὐσεβεστέρους
4. τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἐποίησεν καὶ πάντα
5. εὐθηνεῖ κατὰ πᾶσαν γῆν• καὶ ἀπέχεται
6. βασιλεὺς τῶν ἐμψύχων καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ δὲ
7. ἀνθρωποι καὶ ὅσοι θηρευταὶ ἤ αλιείς
8. βασιλέως πέπαυνται θηρεύοντες καὶ
9. εἲ τινες ἀκρατεῖς πέπαυνται τῆς ἀκρα-
10. σίας κατὰ δύναμιν, καὶ ἐνήκοοι πατρὶ
11. καὶ μητρὶ καὶ τῶν πρεσβυτέρων παρὰ
12. τὰ πρότερον καὶ τοῦ λοιποῦ λῶιον
13. καὶ ἄμεινον κατὰ πάντα ταῦτα
14. ποιοῦντες διάξουσιν.

English (translation)

1. Ten years (of reign) having been completed, King
2. Piodasses (Ashoka) made known (the doctrine of)
3. Piety (εὐσέβεια, Eusebeia) to men; and from this moment he has made
4. men more pious, and everything thrives throughout
5. the whole world. And the king abstains from (killing)
6. living beings, and other men and those who (are)
7. huntsmen and fishermen of the king have desisted
8. from hunting. And if some (were) intemperate, they
9. have ceased from their intemperance as was in their
10. power; and obedient to their father and mother and to
11. the elders, in opposition to the past also in the future,
12. by so acting on every occasion, they will live better
13. and more happily."

Aramaic (in Hebrew alphabet, stylized form of the Aramaic alphabet)

1. שנן 10 פתיתו עביד זי מראן פרידארש מלכא קשיטא מהקשט
2. מן אדין זעיר מרעא לכלהם אנשן וכלהם אדושיא הובד
3. ובכל ארקא ראם שתי ואף זי זנה כמאכלא למראן מלכא זעיר
4. קטלן זנה למחזה כלהם אנשן אתהחסינן אזי נוניא אחדן
5. אלך אנשן פתיזבת כנם זי פרבסת הוין אלך אתהחסינן מן
6. פרבסתי והופתיסתי לאמוהי ולאבוהי ולמזישתיא אנסן
7. איך אסרהי חלקותא ולא איתי דינא לכלהם אנשיא חסין
8. זנה הותיר לכלהם אנשן ואוסף יהותר.

Other inscriptions in Greek in Kandahar

Main articles: Kandahar Greek Edict of Ashoka and Kandahar Sophytos Inscription

An 1881 photo showing the ruined Old Kandahar citadel ("Zor Shar") where the second Greek edict was discovered.

Ancient city of Old Kandahar (red) and Chil Zena mountainous outcrop (blue) on the western side of Kandahar.

The other well-known Greek inscription, the Kandahar Greek Edict of Ashoka, was found 1.5 kilometers to the south of the Bilingual Rock Inscription, in the ancient city of Old Kandahar (known as Zor Shar in Pashto, or Shahr-i-Kona in Dari), Kandahar, in 1963. It is thought that Old Kandahar was founded in the 4th century BC by Alexander the Great, who gave it the Ancient Greek name Αλεξάνδρεια Aραχωσίας (Alexandria of Arachosia). The Edict is a Greek version of the end of the 12th Edicts (which describes moral precepts) and the beginning of the 13th Edict (which describes the King's remorse and conversion after the war in Kalinga). This inscription does not use another language in parallel. It is a plaque of limestone, which probably had belonged to a building, and its size is 45x69.5 cm. The beginning and the end of the fragment are lacking, which suggests the inscription was original significantly longer, and may have included all fourteen of Ashoka's Edicts, as in several other locations in India. The Greek language used in the inscription is of a very high level and displays philosophical refinement. It also displays an in-depth understanding of the political language of the Hellenic world in the 3rd century BC. This suggest the presence of a highly cultured Greek presence in Kandahar at that time.

Two other inscriptions in Greek are known at Kandahar. One is a dedication by a Greek man who names himself "son of Aristonax" (3rd century BC). The other is an elegiac composition by Sophytos son of Naratos (2nd century BC).

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  Kandahar Greek Edict of Ashoka, 3rd century BC, Kandahar.

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  Inscription in Greek by the "son of Aristonax", 3rd century BC, Kandahar.

• 

  Kandahar Sophytos Inscription, 2nd century BC, Kandahar.

See also

• List of Edicts of Ashoka
• Edicts of Ashoka
• Greco-Buddhism