Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Ashoka's two Separate Rock Edicts at Dhauli

Strongly Supported Archaeology

Ashoka had two special messages carved on a rock at Dhauli. They tell his officers in the town of Tosali how to treat people fairly.

Long ago, King Ashoka had two messages cut into a rock at Dhauli. Dhauli is a hill near Bhubaneswar. The messages are for his officers in a town called Tosali. One message says to check on people every five years. Officers also came from Ujjayini and Takshasila, far-off cities. The messages say nothing about ships, goods, or traders [Hultzsch, 1925, p.97].

A scholar working on a different inscription used these words at Dhauli to help place Tosali. He agreed that Tosali really was a town in Kalinga [Epigraphia Indica, n.d., Vol. XX, p.8].

These messages are some of the oldest writing found in Odisha. But no dig has found exactly where Tosali stood. Some historians guess it was a fort called Sisupalgarh. That is still just a guess [Patra, n.d., p.110].

For scholars

No dig has ever proven where Tosali stood. Sisupalgarh is a huge fort nearby, from about the same time. So some historians guess it was Tosali. That guess rests on size and date alone. No writing found there names the town [Patra, n.d., p.110].

People often call these two edicts “edict one” and “edict two.” Long ago, a surveyor said the two labels are swapped. Most books still use the old names, just to avoid confusion [Hultzsch, 1925, pp.xiii-xiv].

Facts

Location
The Dhauli rock, near Dhauli village, Khurda subdivision of the Puri district (now Khordha district), about seven miles south of Bhubaneswar, on the south bank of the Daya river, Odisha
Language
Prakrit, the eastern dialect of Ashoka's edicts (Hultzsch's 'Grammar of the Dhauli and Jaugada rock-edicts', ch. IX)
Script
Brahmi
Date
c. 3rd century BCE, in the reign of Ashoka (Devanampriya Priyadarsin); Kulke & Rothermund place the reign at 268-233 BCE and the conquest of Kalinga at 261 BCE (A History of India, 3rd edn, 1998, p. 61)
Edition
[Hultzsch, 1925, Hultzsch, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum I (1925), pp. 92-100]
  1. *Separate Rock Edicts of Ashoka at Dhauli and Jaugada*. ed. Eugen Hultzsch. 1925. public domain , Hultzsch, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum I (1925), pp. 92-100 (Text, transliteration and translation of both Dhauli separate edicts.)

Why it matters for trade

Both edicts are addressed to the officials at Tosali, so they place a Mauryan provincial town on the Odisha coastal plain in the 3rd century BCE. The first edict orders an inspecting Mahamatra to be sent out every five years, and others at least every three years from Ujjayini and from Takshasila, which means officials moved regularly between Kalinga and cities far to the west. Both edicts also speak to the 'unconquered borderers' living beyond the province. Neither mentions ships, goods or merchants.

Scholar notes

The trade link is indirect: the edicts are about the administration of justice, not commerce. Hultzsch notes that the Dhauli rock omits rock edicts XI-XIII of the Girnar set and puts these two edicts in their place (p. xiii), so Ashoka's own account of the Kalinga war was not displayed in Kalinga. Cunningham showed that the labels 'first' and 'second' are the wrong way round; Hultzsch keeps the old numbering (pp. xiii-xiv). Tosali's exact site is not established; the identification with Sisupalgarh is a proposal.

  1. *Separate Rock Edicts of Ashoka at Dhauli and Jaugada*. ed. Eugen Hultzsch. 1925. public domain , E. Hultzsch, Inscriptions of Asoka (Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum I, new edn, Oxford, 1925): first separate edict pp. 92-97, second pp. 97-100; description of the rock pp. xiii-xiv; Tosali and the province of Kalinga pp. xxxvii-xxxviii (Read in the archive.org scan of Hultzsch's 1925 edition (searchable text).)
  2. *Epigraphia Indica*. Archaeological Survey of India. n.d. , Vol. XX (1929-30), J. Ph. Vogel, 'Prakrit Inscriptions from a Buddhist Site at Nagarjunikonda', p. 8 ('Asoka's two separate Rock-Edicts of Dhauli are addressed to the Governor and the magistrates (Mahamatras) of Tosali. This enables us to locate Tosali in Kalinga.')
  3. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , OHRJ XLVII(2), pp. 109-110 (Dhauli and Jaugada as the urban and political centres of Kalinga under Ashoka Maurya.)