9
Directions: (124-130) Read the passage given below and answer the questions by choosing the most appropriate option. 1. Forty kilometers from Bellary, on the road to Bangalore, a thoughtful signboard directs you to a national monument. If you follow the directions for a few kilometers on this road, you will see a group of rocky hills rise abruptly from the plains, on the banks of the river Janagahalla. Between the river and the hills lies Siddapura, a small village. In three different spots on the hills in this village are inscribed the fabled edicts of Ashoka, one of the greatest figures of Indian hisotry. Edicts were the orders given as messages by the ruler to his people. 2. Of these, the one at Brahmagiri is the best preserved and for the visitor, the most easily accessible. It is located right by the side of the road. All you have to do is to climb a short flight of steps and you are face to face with an Ashokan edict, chiseled on a huge boulder, facing skywards. The second edict is half a kilometer away from the main road, on an outcrop of rocks and the third, about two kilometers from the road, on top of a hill. 3. It was the practice in ancient times to inscribe codes of conduct on rocks. Ashoka followed this practice after his conversion to Buddhism which happened after his victorious battle in Kalinga. The carnage he saw in the war affected him profoundly. He had his messages on good behaviour and conservation inscribed in different parts of his far flung empire but the name Ashoka is not mentioned on a single edict. The edicts are in Pali, the language used by Buddhist missionaries and the characters are in Brahmi, the earliest known Indian script. The script used in these edicts was first deciphered by James Princep in 1837, who succeeded in deciphering an ancient inscription on a large stone pillar in Delhi. 4. Initially, scholars did not know who the author of the inscriptions was Most of the edicts referred to 'the beloved of the Gods, Piyadasi' as the author. It was not until the last century, in 1915 with the discovery of another edict in which the author identified himself as 'King Ashoka Piyadasi' did historians realize that all the edicts were by Ashoka, the Great. King Ashoka embraced Buddhism because he
