The Ashokan Edicts

A body of inscriptions carved on rock faces and stone pillars across the Mauryan Empire, giving this archive one of its most direct primary sources anywhere in ancient material.

primary. Primary source text — summarized in original words, not quoted at length.
Period: mauryan-empire Theme: governance Theme: ethics Theme: inscriptions Theme: primary-evidence

The Ashokan Edicts are a body of inscriptions commissioned by Ashoka and carved into rock faces and stone pillars across a wide territory, and this archive gives them their own dedicated text page because they are referenced throughout the Ashoka and Mauryan Empire pages as primary evidence without having a page of their own to anchor that evidence directly.

Contemporary and self-authored, an unusual combination

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Sources & further reading

Related in the archive

Concept

Dharma

A cluster of ideas around duty, order, and right conduct that is understood differently across Indian traditions.

Person

Ashoka

A Mauryan emperor whose surviving edicts make him one of the best-documented rulers of the ancient world, and a major patron of Buddhist institutions.

Period

The Mauryan Empire

One of the earliest and largest empires on the subcontinent, known from a combination of inscriptions, archaeology, and later accounts.

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