Ashoka's bilingual Greek-Aramaic inscription at Kandahar

Assembled from 51 blocks · 1 evidence · 47 related

1. Story
2. An inscription carved at Chehel Zina near Kandahar in Greek and Aramaic, conventionally dated c. 260 BCE, promulgating Ashoka's dhamma to populations in their own languages. It is hard epigraphic evidence that a South Asian ruler was addressing Hellenistic and Iranian communities on the trade corridor to the west, and that the vocabulary of a tradition was already being translated at its frontier.
3. Knowledge
4. Buddhism
5. Silk Road religious corridor
6. Gandhara
7. Ashoka (Ashoka Maurya)
8. Ashoka's bilingual Greek-Aramaic inscription at Kandahar
9. Connections
10. Ashoka (Ashoka Maurya)
11. Gandhara
12. Silk Road religious corridor
13. Buddhism
14. Elite and state adoption as a diffusion mechanism
15. Buddhism
16. Ashoka's bilingual Greek-Aramaic inscription at Kandahar
17. Council at Pataliputra and the despatch of Buddhist missions (traditional account)
18. Religious syncretism at contact points
19. Buddhism
20. Ashoka's bilingual Greek-Aramaic inscription at Kandahar
21. Anthropomorphic Buddha images appear in Gandhara and Mathura
22. Xuanzang's overland journey to India and return
23. Buddhism
24. Church of the East (Nestorian Christianity)
25. Xuanzang
26. Dunhuang
27. Indian Ocean maritime trade network
28. Ashoka's bilingual Greek-Aramaic inscription at Kandahar
29. Buddhism attested in Han China
30. Traditional founding of the first cave at Mogao
31. Xuanzang's overland journey to India and return
32. Alopen received at the Tang court
33. The Xi'an stele is erected
34. Sogdian merchant networks
35. Silk Road religious corridor
36. Xuanzang
37. Mogao Caves
38. First cave cut at Mogao (traditional date)
39. Xuanzang travels to India and back
40. The Dunhuang Diamond Sutra is printed
41. Gandhara
42. Ashoka (Ashoka Maurya)
43. Ashoka's bilingual Greek-Aramaic inscription at Kandahar
44. Council at Pataliputra and the despatch of Buddhist missions (traditional account)
45. Buddhism attested in Han China
46. Anthropomorphic Buddha images appear in Gandhara and Mathura
47. Traditional founding of the first cave at Mogao
48. Xuanzang's overland journey to India and return
49. Construction of Borobudur under Shailendra patronage
50. Evidence
51. Ashoka issued proclamations of dhamma in Greek and Aramaic at Kandahar around 260 BCE, addressing borderland populations in their own languages; the wider corpus comprises about 33 inscriptions in Prakrit dialects in Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts.