Place · Ashokan inscription · India
Maski
The Mauryan minor rock edict in Raichur district, Karnataka, discovered by C. Beadon in 1915 — the first inscription found that named 'Devanampiya Asoka' outright, finally attaching the long-known 'Beloved-of-the-Gods' honorific to the historical Ashoka. Before Maski, scholars had read the Ashokan edicts as the work of an unnamed Mauryan king and only inferred the attribution. The edict text at Maski is a short address to his officers on dharma propagation. Three further 'Asoka' name-bearing minor edicts have since been found: at Gujarra, Nittur and Udegolam.
- Function
- Text & inscription
- Tradition
- Ashokan edicts (Brahmi, Kharosthi, Greek, Aramaic)
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 15.960, 76.650
Worth knowing
Ashoka is named as Ashoka in only a handful of his inscriptions — this is one. Everywhere else he calls himself Devanampiya Piyadasi, 'beloved of the gods'. Until Maski was read in 1915 the identification rested on inference.
Connections (4)
- Imperial administration ofAshoka
Until the Maski edict was found in 1915, the Devānampiya Piyadasi of the inscriptions and the Ashoka of the Buddhist chronicles were joined only by inference. Maski names him outright, and an emperor known from legend became an emperor known from his own documents. Only a handful of the minor edicts give the personal name at all, which is why the identification waited a century and a half after Prinsep first read the script.
- Companion in the same setGujarrā
Gujarrā and Maski are the two minor edicts that give the personal name Ashoka rather than only the title Beloved of the Gods. Before Maski was read in 1915 the inscriptions and the emperor of the chronicles were joined by inference alone; these two rocks closed the gap. The minor edicts cluster in the south and centre rather than at the frontiers where the great rocks stand, which suggests two separate campaigns of publication with different audiences.
- Imperial inscription atBrahmagiri
Brahmagiri and Maski are both Deccan neolithic and megalithic sites with Ashokan minor rock edicts on them, which is what allows the southern Iron Age sequence to be dated absolutely rather than only relatively. The Maski edict of 1915 is also the one that named the emperor as Ashoka and connected the inscriptions to the Ashoka of the Buddhist chronicles.
- Imperial inscription atSannati, Kalburgi
Kanaganahalli's stupa drum carried a labelled relief portrait of Ashoka with his queens, the only inscribed image of him known, and a fragmentary Ashokan edict was found reused as a floor slab at the same site. Maski's edict names him. Between them the two Raichur-Kalaburagi sites give the emperor a name and a face, three hundred years apart.
On these journeys
Sources
Minor Rock Edicts — Maski
Open Maski in the repository →