Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/82

80 Narbadâ. We do not know for certain in whose reign the southern provinces Were annexed, but it is probable that they were incorporated in the empire during the reign of Bindusâra, whose son is known from the Girnâr inscription of Rudradâman to have been master of Surâshtra, the peninsula of Kathiâwâr, in the far west.

The approximate southern boundary of the empire is easily deﬁned by the existence of three copies of the Minor Rock Edicts in Northern Mysorc (N. lat. 14° 50', E. long. 76° 48') and by the references in the Fourteen Rock Edicts to the Tamil states as independent powers. The frontier line may be drawn with practical accuracy from Nellore (14° 27' N.) on the east coast at the mouth of the Pennâr or Penner river to the mouth of the Kalyânapuri river (13° 15' N.) on the west coast. That river formed the northern boundary of the Tuluva country, which Was separated from Kerala or Malabar by the Chandragiri or Kangarote river (12° 27' N.), which still forms an ethnic frontier which no Nâyar Woman can venture to cross.

Asoka's empire, therefore, comprised the countries now known as Afghanistan, as far as the Hindû Kush,