In the course of my tutorial work on the Palaeography and Epigraphy of India and Ceylon, I have had to read the Aśoka inscriptions with some of my pupils. As a result, I have come across the following words and phrases which to my mind seem to demand an interpretation other than that already supplied by scholars interested in the subject.

(1) Rock Edict III. Girnār. Parisā pi yute ānapayisati gaṇanāyaṁ hetuto ca vyaṁjanato ca.

This sentence, which occurs with dialectic differences in other versions of the third rock edict, has already been discussed by previous writers. I would, nevertheless, translate it thus:—“ The Council (of Mahāmātras) shall also give orders to the yuktas (in respect of these rules) in detail [i.e. item by item] regard being had to (their) raison d'être and to the letter (of the law).”

Speaking of the materials furnished by the Ṛgveda, Dr. A. B. Keith has rightly said that “ conclusions can be drawn only with much caution. It is easy to frame and support by plausible evidence various hypotheses, to which the only effective objection is that other hypotheses are equally legitimate, and that facts are too imperfect to allow of conclusions being drawn ”. (The Cambridge History of India, vol. i, p. 78, 1922.)

That position seems to be sound, but in the same paragraph the writer commits himself to an evident acceptance of the view that “ the bulk at least ” of the hymns of the Rgveda were composed “ south of the modern Ambala ”.

The revelations of Harappa and Mohen-jo-daro and the possibility of finding archæological strata contemporary with the beginning of the Vedic age in the Panjab lend a new interest to evidence of the Veda and it is reasonable to challenge the bases of any prevailing belief with regard to the location of the main settlements of the Vedic Aryans.