Ashoka's two Separate Rock Edicts at Jaugada
- Mauryan Kalinga
The same two messages from Ashoka are carved on a rock inside an old fort at Jaugada. Here they are addressed to his officers in a town called Samapa.
The same two royal messages that Ashoka carved at Dhauli were also cut at Jaugada. Jaugada is an old fort by the Rishikulya river. It is in Ganjam district, Odisha. Here, the messages are for officers in a town called Samapa [Hultzsch, 1925, p.117].
Historians agree this fixes a second Mauryan town on the Odisha coast. Diggers at Jaugada also found old coins, pottery, and an earthen wall [Patra, n.d., p.109].
One historian thinks the messages were placed here because of a nearby port called Palur. That is just his own idea. The messages say nothing about ports, ships, or goods [Patra, n.d., p.113].
For scholars
Much of the Jaugada rock has crumbled away. About half of the first message is gone. About a third of the second message is gone too. Those words can never be read again [Hultzsch, 1925, pp.xiv-xv].
The port-of-Palur idea is a guess. It is not something written in the stone. Readers should not treat it as settled fact [Patra, n.d., p.113].
Facts
- Location
- The Jaugada rock, inside a ruined fort in the Berhampur taluka of the Ganjam district (then Madras Presidency, now Odisha), about eighteen miles north-west of Ganjam town, on the northern bank of the Rishikulya river
- 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 (A History of India, 3rd edn, 1998, p. 61)
- Edition
Sources: [Hultzsch, 1925, Hultzsch, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum I (1925), pp. 111-118]
- *Separate Rock Edicts of Ashoka at Dhauli and Jaugada*. ed. Eugen Hultzsch. 1925. public domain , Hultzsch, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum I (1925), pp. 111-118 (Text, transliteration and translation of both Jaugada separate edicts.)
Why it matters for trade
These copies are addressed to the Mahamatras at Samapa, which Hultzsch identifies as the head-quarters of the district containing Jaugada; he adds that the rock itself was then called Khepingala. That fixes a second Mauryan administrative town in Kalinga, on the northern bank of the Rishikulya near the coast. As at Dhauli, the king addresses the 'unconquered borderers' beyond his frontier. The edicts name no goods, ships or merchants; their value here is that they show where Mauryan authority sat on this coast.
Scholar notes
Jaugada's trade relevance is inferred from where the rock stands, not from what it says. Patra & Patra (OHRJ XLVII.2, p. 113) argue the edicts were placed here because of the nearby port of Palur; that is their inference, not a statement in the inscription. The rock is badly damaged: Hultzsch reports about half of the first tablet and a third of the second have peeled away (p. xiv). The latitude printed for Jaugada in OHRJ p. 109 is plainly wrong, so no coordinates are given here.
- *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. 111-116, second pp. 116-118; description of the rock pp. xiv-xv; Samapa and Khepingala p. xxxviii (Translation of the second separate edict at pp. 117-118: 'The Mahamatras at Samapa have to be told (this) at the word of the king.')
- Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , OHRJ XLVII(2), p. 109 (excavation and finds), p. 113 (argument linking the Jaugada edicts to the port of Palur) (Reports punch-marked and Puri-Kushana coins, knobbed vessels and an earthen rampart at Jaugada.)