Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/215

213 dominions. Evidently he wished to record what he had done for his own people, and did not feel called upon to treat of his dealings with foreign states. The general observations upon propaganda in Section III may be understood as including the foreign missions.

Section I recites the failure of former kings to teach or enforce the Law of Piety. In Section II Asoka formulates his desire to do better, and in Section III enumerates the arrangements made by him for instruction in the Law. Section IV recalls his appointment of special High Officers for the teaching and enforcement of the Law of Piety (Censors), the erection of pillars, and the formal proclamation of his doctrine.

In Section V the sovereign summarizes his efforts to promote the comfort of travellers, adding that, after all, mere enjoyment is a small matter. Section VI explains the nature of the duties entrusted to the Censors. Section VII deals with the Royal Almoner’s Department. In Section VIII, as in P. E. II, Asoka expounds the efficacy of the royal example. Section IX, while admitting that detailed regulations, such as those of RE. V, have their uses, asserts the doctrine that reﬂection on the moral law is far superior to formal rules issued in order to enforce that Law. The tenth and concluding section directs that effective measures should be taken to secure the publication and perpetuation of the imperial scripture of the Law by having it incised upon pillars and tables of stone, wherever such might be available. When P.E. VII was published P. E. l—VI must have been already incised on the various columns now surviving, and others also; but, for some unknown reason, the seventh edict was not multiplied by copies, so far as appears. Of course, it is possible that copies no longer extant may have existed, and it is further not altogether improbable that another copy of this edict may yet be discovered. I believe that many more Asoka inscriptions are in existence.

The style of the review, although marred by tiresome repetitions, is not devoid of dignity. Certain details remain to be elucidated.

Section I. Asoka’s predecessors are described simply as Râjâs.