SSC MTS 2022 PYQ — Question 49

The correct answer is option 2 i.e. Ashoka.

• The most famous Mauryan ruler was Ashoka. He was the first ruler who tried to take his message to the people through inscriptions. Most of Ashoka's inscriptions were in Prakrit and were written in the Brahmi script.
• The earliest undisputed deciphered epigraphy found in the Indian subcontinent are the Edicts of Ashoka of the 3rd century BCE, in the Brahmi script.
• James Prinsep, a British antiquary and colonial administrator was the first person to decipher Ashoka's edicts.
• The first known inscription by Ashoka, the Kandahar Bilingual Rock Inscription, in Greek and in Aramaic, written in the 10th year of his reign (260 BCE).