Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/198

196 who knowing this my purpose will comply with my instructions.

From Ujjain, however, the Prince for this purpose will send out a similar body [of officials], and will not over-pass three years.

In the same way—from Taxila.

When the High Officers aforesaid. . . proceed on transfer in rotation,[then without neglecting their own [ordinary] business, they will attend to this matter also, and thus will carry out the king's instructions.'

Comment

The Jaugaḍa. text is addressed to the corresponding officers at Samâpâ. The Prince is not mentioned in either text, apparently because he was too exalted to be concerned. In so far as this document is identical with Ka-linga Edict I, the Borderers' Edict, see the comment on that edict.

'Administering,' viyohâikâ.

'Principle of government,' nîti. Bühler renders 'maxims of government,' Senart-, 'obligations morales.' I understand that Asoka alludes to the Nîti-śûstras, or treatises on the principles of government, which are either closely related to or identical with the class of works called Arthaśâstra. The existing treatises professedly devoted to Nîti, although much later than Asoka, must be based, like the Arthaśâstra of Kautilya, on lost ancient books.

'Torture;' the word corresponding with the Sanskrit parikleśa should be rendered 'torture,' not 'ill-usage,' as in my earlier version. Senart long ago rightly translated 'torture.' The discovery of Kauṭilya's Arthaśâtra has exposed the horrible Maurya law on the subject of judicial torture, which had come down from much earlier times, 'in the Śâtras of great sages,' as Kauṭilya affirms. The subject is fully treated in Bk. iv, chapters 8, 9, 11. Chapter 10 deals with mutilation and alternative ﬁnes, supposed to be equivalent. Chapter 8, which is devoted to 'trial and torture to elicit confession,' provides that 'those whose guilt is believed to be true shall