Historical Geography Of The Asokan Edicts

This book discusses the geographical implications of the locations of the Asokan edicts and is based on field-studies of many of these locations. The Asokan studies have largely been based, since their inception, on the issues of language, script and grammar, and one hopes that the studies of this kind, which are important ingredients of Asokan scholarship, will continue to be undertaken. However, textual scholarship or grammatical rules do not necessarily lead by themselves to historical or geographical knowledge. By studying in detail the geographical locations of the Asokan edicts, the present book has tried to understand some of the geopolitical factors operative in Mauryan India. It has also tried to identify ancient Tosali and the place where the battle for Kalinga was likely to have taken place. Two more major places which have been identified are Isila and Suvarnagiri. Among other things, it has argued that the Mauryan art, instead of being so-called 'imperial' and 'courtly', was much more broad-based than is thought and effectively foreshadowed some basic elements of the later 'Sunga art'.