Practice question · Multiple choice
Ashoka's edicts appear in Greek and Aramaic in the northwest and in Prakrit elsewhere. What was the multilingual carving for?
Hints
- Ask who lived in Kandahar in 250 BCE, and what they read.
- A monument to power need not be legible. What does legibility suggest about the purpose?
Show the answer
A. To be read by the populations actually present
Why
Choosing each region's actual language means the point was uptake rather than display, and the content — remorse, restraint, tolerance — matches. Persian precedent is real and does not explain the message, which is why the edicts remain the strangest royal inscriptions of the ancient world.
Practise Ancient India: Maurya and Gupta
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