Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/130

128 rock. Both the recensions further agree in being inscribed in the form of Aramaic character, now generally called Kharoshthî, which is written from right to left, and appears to have been introduced by Persian officials into the nortb-Western regions of India after the conquest of the Indus valley by Darius, son of Hystaspes, about  500.

The third version of the Fourteen Edicts, and perhaps the most perfect of all, discovered in 1860, is on a rock about a mile and a half to the south of the village of Kâlsî (N. lat. 30° 32’, E. long. 77° 51’), in the Debra Dûn District of the United Provinces, on the road from Sahâranpur to the cantonment pf Chakrâta, and about fifteen miles westwards from the hill station of Mussoorie (Mansûri). The record is incised on the south-eastern face of a white quartz boulder shaped like the frustum of a pyramid, about 10 feet in diameter at the base and 6 feet at the top, which stands at the foot of the upper of two terraces over-looking the junction of the Jumna and Tons rivers.The confluences of rivers being regarded as sacred the place probably used to be visited by pilgrims, and must have been chosen for that reason as a suitable spot for the inscription. Some pilasters and other wrought stones indicate the former existence of buildings in the vicinity. The text agrees closely with the Mânsahra version, but exhibits certain peculiarities. A well-drawn ﬁgure of an elephant labelled 'the superlative olephant' (gajatama) is incised on one side of the boulder. The character, as in all the