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Notes on the New Aśoka Inscription from Kandahar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Shaul Shaked
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Extract

The new inscription of Aśoka from Kandahar, published by Émile Benveniste and André Dupont-Sommer, forms, together with the one stemming from Pul-i Darunteh (Lamghān) published by W. B. Henning, a special class of Aśoka inscriptions. Both these inscriptions are bilingual, but they do not belong to the common type of bilingual documents, in which the text of each language is separately inscribed on a different part of the stone's surface. Here the two languages are mixed, each short section in one language is followed by one in the other language. The two languages involved, both written in Aramaic characters, are Aramaic and Middle Indian (Prākrit).

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 101 , Issue 2 , April 1969 , pp. 118 - 122
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1969

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References

1 “Une inscription indo-araméenne d'Asoka provenant de Kandahar (Afghanistan)”, JA, CCLIV, 3–4, 1966, 437–465. This inscription will be referred to as Kand. II.

2 “The Aramaic inscription of Asoka found in Lampāka”, BSOAS, XIII, 1, 1949, 80–88Google Scholar.

3 Though it is not used there to designate a front vowel; cf. Friedrich, J., Phönizisch-punische Grammatik, Rome, 1951, p. 42 f., §107Google Scholar.

4 Nöldeke, T., Mandäische Grammatik, Halle, 1875, 69 f.Google Scholar; Macuch, R., Handbook of Classical and Modern Mandaic, Berlin, 1965, p. 13, §8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 In Manichaean Middle Persian, examples for the use of ‘ayin as a front vowel in initial position are numerous; cf. ‘y (= iẓāfat), ‘yn, ‘yst’dn, ‘spwr. In the middle of the word it is often used as a line-filler with yod or for distinguishing words of similar appearance; cf. Henning, W. B., Ztsch. f. lndologie u. Iranistik, IX, 1933, 180Google Scholar. For a similar usage in Manichaean Parthian cf. Ghilain, A., Essai sur la langue parthe, Louvain, 1939, 41Google Scholar. On Sogdian cf. Gershevitch, I., A grammar of Manichaean Sogdian, Oxford, 1954, p. 3, §18–22Google Scholar.

6 W. B. Henning, Handbuch der Orientalistik, I, 4: Iranistik, 1, Linguistik, Leiden-Köln, 1958, 36, points out the irregularities in the use of ‘ayin, although it appears particularly commonly before front vowels.

7 Cf. Benveniste, op. cit., 449 f.

8 Salemann, C., Grundriss der iranischen Philologie, I, 1, 280Google Scholar.

9 Op. cit., 452.

10 Professor Sir Harold Bailey adds the following suggestion (in a letter): “At the end of glosses in Khotan Saka and Tumšuq Saka one finds Khot. hvindä ‘it is said, it means’, and Tumšuq hvaniḏi, both passive. Would the shyty be here Iranian *sahyatai ‘It is said’?”