Early History of Orissa

SR No.: 006922
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Amarchand Mittal
Publisher: Jain Cultural Research Society
Publication Year: 1957
Total Pages: 506
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 9 MB

Page 198

ADMINISTRATION OF KALINGA
173
that the rule of RE III, which was a general rule, had to be modified subsequently in the case of Provinces under the Kumāras in order to meet the changed political situation that arose there. He gives three reasons for this modification :
(a) The actual placing of the two Separate Kalinga
Edicts below or in the side of the set of Rock Edicts with the utmost care to keep them distinct proves beyond doubt that they were
engraved later. (b) If the Kumāras mentioned in SKE I be Asoka's
sons as distinguished from the Viceroy at Suvarnagiri referred to as Āryaputra (MRE), it is difficult to think that his sons, if he had any in his 12th, 13th and 14th regnal years, when the Rock Edicts were promulgated, were grown up enough
to be 'eligible by age for Viceroyalty'. (c) It is not precisely a fact that SKE I sets forth
the first conception of Asoka's scheme of quinquennial tours. Here, his chief object is to state certain circumstances which led him to think of including the checking of miscarriage of justice, arbitrary imprisonment and torture' by the high officials concerned, in the provinces under the Kumāra-Viceroy in the tour programme of the Rājavachanikas.
Now, as regards the first point, it appears rather more plausible that the Separate Kalinga Edicts were engraved first, and the set of other Rock Edicts only followed them. The actual placing of the SKEs suggest it. The inscriptions, on the Dhauli Rock, appear in three columns-RE I to RE VI in the middle; RE VII to RE X and RE XIV