Re: Asoka pillar

Dear Amara,

>Thank you both for this very much, I really appreciate the discussion,
>and Jim's great translation, which I would like to ask about;  I would

I'd like to clarify that it wasn't my translation. It was done by E.
Hultzsch which S. Dutt quotes (possibly) from Inscriptions of Asoka, 1925.
(Dutt doesn't give the book's title and I'm only thinking that this might be
the one).

>like know more about the 'stone horse or wall'.  In Thai we use the
>word 'ma' - high tone- to indicate not only the animal but something
>with generally four 'legs' on which one sits or sets an object.  Is
>there any possibility that in Pali this is also the case, say the
>'horse' being the pedestal for something?  In which case could it be
>the stone dug up under the Maha Maya statue in the temple, which is
>said not to be a local stone, and not found within hundreds of miles
>around?  The archeologists reported that although the temples built
>over one another varied in shape and size, the statue has always been
>in the same spot, right over the stone.

The word(s) in the inscription for the stone wall or horse is
'silaaviga.dabhiicaa' which doesn't seem to make much sense in Pali or
Sanskrit. All I can make of it so far is 'sila' for stone and 'ga.da' (Skt.)
for wall or fence. 'caa' at the end might be 'ca' for 'and'. I don't see any
word in it suggesting a horse ('assa' in Pali). On the same page from where
I quoted the translation of the inscription there is also mentioned a much
defaced relief in stone discovered near the shrine showing Queen Maya
holding the branch of a tree. It says that this stone is made of yellowish
sandstone like that of the Asokan pillar. Could this be the same stone that
you're referring to (the one dug up under the statue)? I'm afraid I have
very little in the way of specialized information on Asokan inscriptions to
help us out. However, tt does sound plausible that the discovered stone
might be related to that troublesome word in the inscription.

Jim


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