The Aramaic Inscription of Asoka found in Lampāka

Abstract

Several years before the war a photograph of a stone inscription in Aramaic letters was published in the Persian language periodical Kabul (vol. ii, 1932, p. 413). The following note (in Persian), printed below the photograph, constitutes the whole of our information on the material, history, and provenance of the inscription:ߞ“A historical inscribed stone: A few years ago a broken stone tablet (lauhe) with ancient Sanskrit writing was procured in the neighbourhood of Pul-i Darunta, Laghmān, and entrusted to Kabul Museum. So far its contents have not been read and understood. The original of the above (depicted) stone is in Kabul Museum.”Laghmān, older Lamyān (from Lambayān<*Lampakāna), is the name of a district on the left (northern) bank of the Kabul river, a little above Jalalabad; it comprises the valleys of the Lower Alingār and Ališang. This district, whose name is familiar to Sanskritists as Lampāka (also Lambāka), was traditionally regarded as part of the Indian borderlands, the ultima Thule of Jambuduīpa. Cf. Mémoires de Hiouen-thsang, i, 55, “en partant de ce royaume ( = Kāpiśī), il… franchit les montagnes noires, entra dans les frontières de l'lnde du nord, et arriva au royaume de Lan-po”. Cf. also Lampāka in the Yaksa catalogue of the Mahāmāyūrī, and further H. Lüders, SbPAW., 1930, 43, 48, 51, 63. One may presume that the traditional view reflects the conditions prevailing under the Maurya dynasty.The inscription was made known in Europe by Professor Morgenstierne, who, on finding that the alphabet was Aramaic, asked H. Birkeland to publish it.