Consider the following statements with reference to the inscriptions of Ashoka: 1. Most of the inscriptions are in Prakrit language and Brahmi script. 2. The inscriptions found at Mansehra and Shahbazgarhi are in Prakrit language and Kharoshthi script. Select the correct answer from the code given below:
- (a)Only 1
- (b)Only 2
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Correct — C, Both 1 and 2.
Statement 1 holds. The bulk of Ashoka's edicts are composed in Prakrit and cut in Brahmi, from Kalsi in Uttarakhand to Girnar in Gujarat and Jaugada in Odisha.
Statement 2 holds too, and it is the more interesting half. Mansehra and Shahbazgarhi lie in the north-west, in present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. They carry the same edicts in a north-western Prakrit (Gandhari), engraved in Kharoshthi, a right-to-left script of Aramaic descent.
So Both 1 and 2 stands. Carry away that language and script are two separate variables: the north-west heard the same edicts in its own Prakrit, written in the letters that region already read.
- (a)Only 1 — This needs statement 2 to fail, and it does not. Mansehra and Shahbazgarhi are Prakrit written in Kharoshthi, exactly as the statement says.
It is the right answer to a version whose second statement moved further west, to the Kandahar inscriptions in Afghanistan, which are in Greek and Aramaic — there the language itself changes, not merely the script.
- (b)Only 2 — This requires statement 1 to be false, which would mean Prakrit-in-Brahmi is not the bulk of the corpus. It is.
It is the right answer to a stem whose first statement instead described the earliest Indian inscriptions as being in Sanskrit — a description that fits the later epigraphic record, such as Rudradaman's Junagadh inscription, rather than Ashoka's edicts.
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2 — This asks you to reject both, and each statement survives on its own evidence: Brahmi carries the Prakrit text across most of the empire, and the north-western pair carries its Prakrit text in Kharoshthi.
It is the right answer to a pairing that reversed the geography — Brahmi placed at Mansehra and Shahbazgarhi, with Kharoshthi spread across the rest of the empire.
Ashoka's edicts are one message repeated across an empire, with the medium adjusted to the audience. The language is Prakrit at most sites; the script follows what the region already read.
Brahmi carries that Prakrit text through the Gangetic plain, the Deccan and the south. In the north-west, the same edicts appear in a north-western Prakrit written in Kharoshthi. Further west, at Kandahar, the message is translated into Greek and Aramaic.
This sits where political history meets epigraphy. The edicts are the primary evidence for Mauryan administration and for Ashoka's Dhamma, and they became readable to modern scholarship only after Brahmi was deciphered in the nineteenth century.
For an Uttarakhand paper the topic is close to home: the Kalsi rock in Dehradun district, near where the Tons joins the Yamuna, carries Major Rock Edicts in Prakrit written in Brahmi.
- Mansehra and Shahbazgarhi lie in present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, and carry Major Rock Edicts whose Prakrit text is engraved in Kharoshthi.
- Kharoshthi descends from Aramaic and is written from right to left, while Brahmi is written from left to right.
- James Prinsep announced the decipherment of Ashokan Brahmi in 1837, which opened the edicts to modern reading.
- Ashoka's message appears at Kandahar in Afghanistan in Greek and Aramaic, including a bilingual Greek and Aramaic rock inscription.
- Kalsi, in Dehradun district of Uttarakhand, is a Major Rock Edict site inscribed in Prakrit and Brahmi.
- Sanskrit becomes usual for long royal inscriptions later; Rudradaman's Junagadh rock inscription of about 150 CE is an early example.
The two statements in this question describe the highlighted rows; in the rows below them the language changes, not only the script.
- Treating 'Prakrit language and Brahmi script' as one inseparable package, so that any site described as Kharoshthi is assumed to be in a different language too.
- Assuming a north-western findspot must mean a foreign language; at Mansehra and Shahbazgarhi the language is still Prakrit, written in a different script.
- Reading 'most' in statement 1 as 'all', then rejecting a true statement because the Kandahar versions are in Greek and Aramaic.
- Relocating Kharoshthi to southern or eastern India, when its inscriptional home is the north-west.
- Assigning Ashoka's edicts to Sanskrit because Sanskrit dominates the better-known inscriptions of later dynasties.
The idea arrives as a pairing test: a findspot on one side, a language or a script on the other, with the mark riding on whether you keep those two apart.
It also appears as a single correct-statement item, with Kharoshthi placed in the wrong region or an edict's language given as Sanskrit, and as a decipherment question tied to Prinsep and the bilingual Indo-Greek coins.
CAPF_GAI_2023_Q172023The same two scripts are on trial, tested from the other side. That item offers Brahmi's local variations and places Kharoshthi in southern India as a lure, so it checks where a script belongs; this stem names two Kharoshthi findspots and checks whether the language stays Prakrit.
NDA_GAT_2024_I_Q632024Tests the same variable as statement 1 here — the language of India's early inscriptions — from the opposite side, asserting Sanskrit where this stem asserts Prakrit. It also adds Kharoshthi's decipherment through Indo-Greek coins. That item asks how many statements are correct; this one is a two-statement code with a north-western findspot named.
CDS_GK_2025_I_Q342025Both are about Ashoka's inscriptions and both turn on matching a site to a language or script. That item works entirely through named findspots, one option placing Kalsi in Uttarakhand and another claiming a Kerala edict is in Sanskrit; this one fixes on the script used at two sites.
UPSC_2019_GS1_Q82019Shahbazgarhi appears in both, but doing different work. There it is one of four candidate findspots for a relief sculpture inscription naming Ranyo Ashoka; here it is evidence about script. Knowing that Shahbazgarhi is a north-western Kharoshthi site serves either question.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The Ashokan Major Rock Edicts at Mansehra and Shahbazgarhi are engraved in which script?
- (a)Brahmi
- (b)Kharoshthi
- (c)Aramaic
- (d)Greek
Answerb — these two north-western sites carry their Prakrit text in Kharoshthi, the right-to-left script of Aramaic descent used in that region.Brahmi (a) is the script of the other Major Rock Edict sites, such as Kalsi and Girnar.
Aramaic (c) and Greek (d) belong to Ashoka's north-western and Afghan inscriptions — Aramaic at Taxila, Laghman and Pul-i-Darunta, and Greek with Aramaic at Kandahar — where the language itself changes.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Kalsi, a site of Ashokan Major Rock Edicts, lies in which present-day State?
- (a)Himachal Pradesh
- (b)Uttarakhand
- (c)Uttar Pradesh
- (d)Haryana
Answerb — Kalsi stands in Dehradun district of Uttarakhand, near where the Tons joins the Yamuna, and its edicts are in Prakrit written in Brahmi.Himachal Pradesh (a), Uttar Pradesh (c) and Haryana (d) are plausible because they neighbour the region, but the inscribed rock is on the Uttarakhand side of the Yamuna.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Consider the following statements: 1. Kharoshthi is written from right to left. 2. The decipherment of Ashokan Brahmi was announced by James Prinsep in 1837. Select the correct answer from the code given below:
- (a)Only 1
- (b)Only 2
- (c)Both 1 and 2
- (d)Neither 1 nor 2
Answerc — Kharoshthi runs right to left, a habit inherited from Aramaic, so statement 1 is true. Prinsep's reading of Ashokan Brahmi was announced in 1837, so statement 2 is true as well.Options a and b each discard one true statement, and d discards both.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Ashoka's bilingual inscription in Greek and Aramaic was found at which of the following places?
- (a)Taxila
- (b)Kandahar
- (c)Mansehra
- (d)Sopara
Answerb — the bilingual Greek and Aramaic edict comes from Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, where Ashoka's message was rendered into the languages of that population.Taxila (a) is known for an Aramaic inscription; the pairing of Greek with Aramaic in one rock text is Kandahar's. Mansehra (c) carries Prakrit in Kharoshthi. Sopara (d), on the Konkan coast, preserves a fragment of the Major Rock Edicts in Prakrit and Brahmi.