The Aramaic inscription of Kandahar is an inscription on a fragment of a block of limestone (24x18 cm) discovered in the ruins of

Old Kandahar Old Kandahar (locally known as Zorr Shaar; ps, زوړ ښار, , Old City, also Shahr-i-Kona in Dari) is a historical section of the city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Many believe that there are hidden ancient treasures buried in and aroun ...

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

in 1963, and published in 1966 by

André Dupont-Sommer André Dupont-Sommer (23 December 1900, Marnes-la-Coquette – 14 May 1983, Paris) was a French semitologist. He specialized in the history of Judaism around the beginning of the Common Era, and especially the Dead Sea Scrolls The Dead Sea ...

. It was discovered practically at the same time as the Greek Edicts of Ashoka, which suggests that the two inscriptions were more or less conjoined. The inscription was written in Aramaic, probably by the Indian emperor Ashoka about 260 BCE. Since Aramaic was the official language of the

Achaemenid Empire The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Based in Western Asia, it was contemporarily the largest em ...

, which disappeared in 320 BCE with the conquests of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...

, it seems that this inscription was addressed directly to the populations of this ancient empire for whom Aramaic remained the language of use.A new Aramaic inscription of Asoka found in the Laghman Valley (Afghanistan), André Dupont-Sommer Proceedings of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres Year 1970 114-
p.173
/ref>A new Aramaic inscription of Asoka discovered in Kandahar (Afghanistan) Dupont-Sommer, André Records of the sessions of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres Year 1966 110-
pp.440-451
/ref>

Background

The discovery of this inscription is to be related to that of several other inscriptions in Aramaic or Greek (or both sets), written by Asoka. The most famous are the Kandahar Bilingual Inscription, written in Greek and Aramaic, or the Greek Edicts of Ashoka, also found in Kandahar. Previously, in 1915, Sir John Marshall discovered the

Aramaic Inscription of Taxila The Aramaic Inscription of Taxila is an inscription on a piece of marble, originally belonging to an octagonal column, discovered by Sir John Marshall in 1915 at Taxila, British India. The inscription is written in Aramaic, probably by the Indian e ...

, and in 1932 another inscription in Aramaic was discovered in the Laghman Valley in Pul-i-Darunteh, the Pul-i-Darunteh Aramaic inscription. Finally, another inscription, the

Aramaic inscription of Laghman The Aramaic inscription of Laghman, also called the Laghman I inscription to differentiate from the Laghman II inscription discovered later, is an inscription on a slab of natural rock in the area of Laghmân, Afghanistan, written in Aramaic by ...

was also discovered in 1970. The Aramaic inscription of Kandahar is an inscription in "Indo-Aramaic" alternating Indian language and Aramaic language, but using only the

Aramaic script The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...

, the Aramaic parts translating the Indian parts transcribed in the Aramaic alphabet. It does not explicitly refer to Ashoka in the fragment that was found, but the place of discovery, the style of writing, the vocabulary used, allows to link the inscription to the other Ashoka inscriptions known in the region.

Content of the inscription

This inscription is usually interpreted as a version of a passage from

Major Pillar Edict The Major Pillar Edicts of Indian Emperor Ashoka refer to seven separate major Edicts of Ashoka inscribed on columns, the Pillars of Ashoka, which are significantly detailed and are among the earliest dated inscriptions of any Indian monarch. An E ...

n°7. The word SHYTY which appears several times corresponds to the Middle Indian word ''Sahite'' (Sanskrit ''Sahitam''), meaning "in agreement with", "according to ...", and which allows to introduce a quote, in this case here Indian words found in the Ashoka Edits. Many of these Indian words, transcribed here phonetically in Aramaic, are indeed identifiable, and otherwise exist only in

n°7 of Ashoka, in the same order of use : 'NWPTYPTY' corresponds to the Indian word ''anuppatipatiya'' (without order, in disorder), and 'NWPTYP ...' to ''anuppatipamme''. Y'NYHYK'NY .... corresponds to ''yani hi kanici'' and is the first word of this edict. There are also several words in the Aramaic language, the role of which would be to explain the meaning of the Indian words and phrases mentioned: the word WK'N "and now", WYHWTRYWN "they have grown, and they will grow", PTYSTY "obedience" .... This inscription, in spite of its partial and often obscure character, seems to be a translation or a line-by-line commentary of elements of

n°7. A more extensive analysis with photographs was published in the '' Asian Journal''."An Indo-Aramaic Inscription of Asoka from Kandahar", by Emile Benveniste and André Dupont-Sommer, Journal Asiatique, T. ccliv 1966, pp.437-465.

References

{{Central Asian history Archaeological discoveries in Afghanistan Aramaic inscriptions

Background

Content of the inscription

See also

References