Place · Ashokan inscription · India
Jaugaḍa
The second site of the Ashokan Kalinga Edicts, in Ganjam district of Odisha, inside an earthen fort of pre-Mauryan origin. The edict stones carry Ashoka's reformed address to the newly conquered Kalingans — speaking to them as 'my subjects, my children' and renouncing further war. Jaugada and Dhauli, 300 kilometres apart, together form the southern half of the Ashokan epigraphic belt, inscribed around 257 BCE after the brutal Kalinga war that killed and displaced hundreds of thousands. The fort itself is a square earthwork of about 50 hectares with four gates; the edicts stand near the eastern gate.
- Function
- Text & inscription
- Tradition
- Ashokan edicts (Brahmi, Kharosthi, Greek, Aramaic)
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 19.525, 84.830
Connections (2)
- Imperial inscription atPātaliputra
Jaugada, inside an earthen fort in Ganjam, is the southern of the two Kalinga edict sites, carrying the same separate edicts as Dhauli. The pairing is administrative: two provincial headquarters, each given the text intended for the conquered, several hundred kilometres apart. The fort around it is a real early-historic rampart, so the inscription sits where the provincial government it addresses actually sat.
- InscriptionAshoka
Jaugada in Ganjam carries the separate Kalinga edicts, in which Ashoka addresses the officials of the conquered province directly: all men are my children, he tells them, and orders that the administration be inspected every few years to check it. Along with Dhauli it preserves the administrative side of the conquest, and neither site carries the famous passage of remorse that appears everywhere else in the empire.
On these journeys
Sources
Major Rock Edicts — Jaugada
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