Did Hellenistic kings send letters to Asoka?

• Author: Hinuber, Von Oskar
• Position: Critical essay

As soon as script was introduced in India the art of writing letters may have been practiced. If it was, this is not known directly from any surviving correspondence of the third century B.C., of course. Nor are letters mentioned in early literature before Kautalya, who, in his "Chapter on royal orders" (sasanadhikara II 10) describes at an uncertain date how official letters are to be written. Only by the middle of the first millennium A.D. letters are mentioned occasionally in Sanskrit dramas, mostly in passing, and in Buddhist literature, frequently, particularly in the Jatakas. (1)

Only one drama, the Mudraraksasa (V 9/10), is more explicit: one of Raksasa's letters is intercepted and opened secretly "without violating the seal." (2) Luckily, the beginning of the letter is read out (vacitah): svasti yathasthanam kuto 'pi ko' pi kam api purusavisesam avagamayati "Well-being! According to the right order; from somewhere somebody informs some high-ranking personality." After this summary of the address the content proper begins. This paragraph provides some vague ideas about the form of an ancient Indian letter, but only of the beginning. For, unfortunately, the end of the letter is not quoted. Epistolary literature from India, on the other hand, such as the Lekhapaddhati, begins only almost a millennium later. (3)

Nothing is known, at least not directly, about letters written at the time of Asoka more than half a millennium earlier than the time at which Visakhadatta probably composed his Mudraraksasa. (4) Therefore it will remain forever unknown how many, if any, letters were produced by the Maurya administration. However, given the area of the kingdom, the number of letters might have been considerable. For, according to Plutarch, already King Seleukos I Nikator (*358/4; reg. 305-281), (5) as a contemporary of Asoka's grandfather, complained: "It is said that he used to say: If people knew how laborious only writing so many letters is and reading them, they would not pick up a crown that is thrown away" (6)--though most likely there were not as many official letters read and written by Seleukos as those issued by the chancery of Pope Gregory XI (1370-1378), which churned out no less than 15,450 official letters already during the first year of his eight-year pontificate--not including the secret correspondence! (7) It is well known, however, that Asoka sent dutas 'emissaries' (RE XIII 131, 10 Bloch) to convey messages either written or orally, or rather both, to various people, because we learn from the VIth Rock Edict about "oral orders" issued by Asoka. (8) Much later, the letter read out in the Mudraraksasa and other references confirm that it was not at all unusual to add an oral message to the written one. (9)

The content of Asoka's messages can be inferred from the XIIIth Rock Edict: (10) They were meant to spread his dhammavijaya, which he considered as the highest victory and which he wished to propagate everywhere, also far beyond India, where the Greek king (yonaraja) Amtiyoka (-ga) is ruling and even beyond his realm farther to the west to four [Greek] kings (captaro 4 rajano) Turamaya (Tulamaya), Amtekina, Maka (Maga), Alikasudara. (11) It is apparent from the text that Antiochos/Antiyoka as the nearest neighbor is mentioned in a special position at the beginning, which might also hint at somewhat closer contacts.

During Asoka's reign the western contacts of the Maurya administration could look back to a certain tradition already. Northwestern India was part of the Achaemenid empire and consequently it was and is often surmised that Achaemenid art influenced the earliest stone monuments in India, the Asokan or partly pre-Asokan pillars, after artisans immigrated from Persia to India after Alexander's conquest. Even the wooden palace built by Asoka in Pataliputra is sometimes considered as some sort of wooden replica of the architecture at Persepolis: "une doctrine seduisante" as L. de La Vallee Poussin says, but probably not more than that. (12) All this is well known and more or less likely, though there is not too much to substantiate these very general assumptions, even if they are considered as probable. (13)

The most obvious and undeniable trace of this cultural contact, however, is the adoption of the Kharosthi script. The idea of installing inscriptions might well have travelled together with the script. And for a long time Achaemenid influence has been seen in some of the formulations used by Asoka in his inscriptions. (14) The very vocabulary used in the northwest for writing inscriptions, the verb ni-pis together with the noun dipi, are Iranian. Old Persian wordings such as dipim naiy nipistam akunaus (Xerxes V 22) "he did not have an...