[30]A list of these is given in Childers’ Dictionary.
[31]See Introduction to Buddha-ghosha’s Parables, by Professor Max Müller; Turnour’s Mahā-vaṉṡa, pp. 250-253.
[32]They are in two quite distinct kinds of writing. That at Kapurda-garhi—sometimes called Northern Aṡoka or Ariano-Pāli—is clearly Semitic, and traceable to a Phœnician source, being written from right to left. That at Girnār, commonly called Southern Aṡoka or Indo-Pāli, is read from left to right, and is not so clearly traceable. If it came from the west it probably came through a Pahlavī channel, and gave rise to Devanāgarī. General Cunningham and others believe this latter character to have originated independently in India. James Prinsep was the first to decipher the inscription character.
[33]See Dr. R. N. Cust’s article in the ‘Journal of the National Indian Association’ for June, 1879, and one of his Selected Essays, and General Sir A. Cunningham’s great work, ‘The Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum.’ The General reckons thirteen rock inscriptions, seventeen cave inscriptions, and six inscribed pillars.
The eight most important rock inscriptions are those on (1) the Rock of Kapurda-garhi (at Shāhbāz-garhi), in British Afghānistān, forty miles east-north-east of Peshāwar—this is in the Ariano-Pāli character; (2) the Rock of Khālsi, situated on the bank of the river Jumnā, just where it leaves the Himālaya mountains, fifteen miles west of the hill-station of Mussourie; (3) the Rock of Girnār, half-a-mile to the east of the city of Junagurh, in Kāthiāwār; (4) the Rock of Dhauli, in Kuttack (properly Kaṭak), twenty miles north of Jagan-nāth; (5) the Rock of Jaugada, in a large old fort eighteen miles west-north-west of Ganjam in Madras; (6) Bairāt; (7) Rūpnāth, at the foot of the Kaimur range; (8) Sahasarām, at the north-east end of the Kaimur. The second Bairāt inscription is most important as the only one which mentions Buddha by name.
The five most important pillars are: (1) the Pillar at Delhi known as Firoz Shāh’s Lāṭ; (2) another Pillar at Delhi, which was removed to Calcutta, but has recently been restored; (3) the Pillar at Allahābād, a single shaft without capital, of polished sandstone, thirty-five feet in height; (4) the Pillar at Lauriya, near Bettiah, in Bengal; (5) the Pillar at another Lauriya, seventy-seven miles north-west of Patnā.
[34]Hiouen Thsang states that the three commentaries were engraved on sheets of copper and buried in a Stūpa. Beal, I. 152-156.
[35]Our word monk (derived from μοναχός, ‘one who lives alone,’) is not quite suitable unless it be taken to mean ‘one who withdraws from worldly life.’ See [p. 75].
[36]Although he discouraged, he did not prohibit monks from living solitary lives. See [p. 132] as to the Pratyeka-Buddha, and [note, p. 72].
[37]Some prefer to derive the Pāli Ṡamaṇo from the Sanskṛit root Ṡam, ‘to be quiet.’ Ṡmāṡānika, ‘frequenting burning grounds,’ is a later name, life being to monks a kind of graveyard.