ABSTRACT
The inscriptions of Asoka are invaluable to us for a study of the language and alphabet of Northern India in the third century B.c. The Edicts are undoubtedly in the language which was spoken and understood by the people in Asoka’s time; and the fact that the same Edicts are recorded in dialects slightly differing from each other, in the different parts of India, prove that the great emperor desired to publish his laws in the dialect which was spoken by the people in each separate portion of his extensive empire.
