To: Alouette
CD Universe had the graphic, many thanks to them. Wish this were on DVD...
25 posted on
07/14/2004 12:23:49 PM PDT by
SunkenCiv
(Unlike some people, I have a profile. Okay, maybe it's a little large...)
To: All
[emphasis added below] See the "in reply to" link for a video which includes shots of one of the *three* surviving Aramaic pillars of Ashoka.
The Edicts of King Ashoka
An English Rendering by Ven. S. Dhammika
Asoka's edicts are to be found scattered in more than thirty places throughout India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Most of them are written in Brahmi script from which all Indian scripts and many of those used in Southeast Asia later developed. The language used in the edicts found in the eastern part of the sub-continent is a type of Magadhi, probably the official language of Asoka's court. The language used in the edicts found in the western part of India is closer to Sanskrit although one bilingual edict in Afghanistan is written in Aramaic and Greek. Asoka's edicts, which comprise the earliest decipherable corpus of written documents from India, have survived throughout the centuries because they are written on rocks and stone pillars. These pillars in particular are testimony to the technological and artistic genius of ancient Indian civilization. Originally, there must have been many of them, although only ten with inscriptions still survive. Averaging between forty and fifty feet in height, and weighing up to fifty tons each, all the pillars were quarried at Chunar, just south of Varanasi and dragged, sometimes hundreds of miles, to where they were erected.
48 posted on
07/18/2004 7:53:04 AM PDT by
SunkenCiv
(Unlike some people, I have a profile. Okay, maybe it's a little large...)
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