Amongst the other Inscriptions, which are directly concerned with the Mauryan period and which are not necessarily those of Asoka, mention may be made of the Priyadarshi Inscription at Taxila, Lampaka or Lamghan Inscription (on the bank of Kabul river near Jalalabad, Afghanistan), the Sohgaura (Gorakhpur district, U.P.)

Copper Plate Inscrip­tion and Mahaslhan inscription of Bogra district of the third century B.C the last two Inscriptions deal with the relief measures to be adopted during a famine. The Junagarh Rock Inscription of Rudradaman of A.D. 150 contains an incidental reference to the Mauryas.

The Edicts of Asoka provide us direct informa­tion about his administrative, religious, ethical, foreign and domestic policies and indirectly we can infer about the extent of the Mauryan Empire on the basis of the location of these Edicts and also about the contemporary social and religious beliefs.

The Script and Language of the Asokan Inscriptions: The Asokan Inscriptions are written in two scripts known as Kharosthi and Brahmi. The former is a cursive script written from right to left. Of the Asokan Inscriptions, only those at Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra are written in this script.

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The other Inscriptions of Asoka are all written in popular Brahmi running from left to right, the mother of all Indian scripts, including Burmese, Tibetan, Sinhalese, etc. Two Northern Inscriptions found near Taxila and Kandahar are written in Anamaic and Greek scripts. Except for the Kandahar In­scription, the language used in each case is Prakrit with regional variations. It is interesting that Asoka consistently used Prakrit, the language spoken by the common masses, and not Sanskrit, the language of the elite.