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Photo: JF. Fleet · Public domain
Inscription · 150 CE (Shaka year 72)

Junagadh rock inscription of Rudradaman

Found
The great boulder at the foot of Girnar, Junagadh, Gujarat, which also carries Ashoka’s edicts
Kept at
In place, inside a protective building

The first long inscription in classical Sanskrit, recording how the Shaka ruler Rudradaman rebuilt the Sudarshana lake after a storm burst its dam.

What it says

The lake was first made by Pushyagupta, the Vaishya governor of Chandragupta Maurya, and fitted with conduits by the Yavana-raja Tushaspha for Ashoka. Rudradaman’s minister Suvishakha restored it “without oppressing the people with taxes, forced labour or levies”. Rudradaman also boasts of twice defeating Satakarni, lord of Dakshinapatha, and sparing him because they were close kin.

What it proves

It names Chandragupta Maurya and his governor in Saurashtra, proving Maurya rule reached the western sea, and shows Sanskrit becoming the language of royal records.

Evidence for

Chandragupta Maurya

Chandragupta Maurya’s rule in Saurashtra

Ashoka

Ashoka’s works at Girnar

Satavahana dynasty

Satavahana–Shaka wars

Evidence

Boğazköy treaty naming Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the NasatyasInscription
c. 1380 BCE

Boğazköy treaty naming Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatyas

A treaty between the Hittite king Suppiluliuma I and Shattiwaza, prince of Mitanni in north Syria, sworn before the gods of both kingdoms. Among the Mitanni gods stand four names any Vedic priest would know.

Behistun inscription of Darius IInscription
c. 520 BCE

Behistun inscription of Darius I

The Persian king Darius I tells, in Old Persian, Elamite and Babylonian, how he took the throne and which lands obeyed him. Gandhara is on the list.

Kandahar bilingual edict of AshokaInscription
c. 258 BCE (ten years after Ashoka’s abhisheka)

Kandahar bilingual edict of Ashoka

Ashoka’s message of dhamma, carved in Greek and Aramaic for the Greek and Persian-speaking subjects at the western edge of his empire.

Edicts of AshokaInscription
c. 268–232 BCE

Edicts of Ashoka

Fourteen major rock edicts, minor rock edicts and seven pillar edicts in which the Maurya emperor speaks in his own voice, as Devanampiya Piyadasi.

Kalinga edicts at Dhauli and JaugadaInscription
c. 3rd century BCE

Kalinga edicts at Dhauli and Jaugada

In conquered Kalinga, Ashoka left out the thirteenth rock edict, which mourns the war, and carved two separate edicts addressed to his officers there instead.

Sohgaura copper plateInscription
Maurya period, c. 3rd century BCE

Sohgaura copper plate

A small bronze-copper plate in early Brahmi, issued by the officials of Shravasti, cast with symbols of storehouses above the text.

Hathigumpha inscription of KharavelaInscription
c. 2nd–1st century BCE

Hathigumpha inscription of Kharavela

Seventeen lines in Prakrit and Brahmi recording, year by year, the reign of Kharavela, the Jain emperor of Kalinga.

Heliodorus pillar, BesnagarInscription
c. 113 BCE

Heliodorus pillar, Besnagar

A stone Garuda-dhvaja raised to Vasudeva by Heliodorus, a Greek envoy from Takshashila, at the court of King Bhagabhadra.