Who of the following had first deciphered the edicts of Emperor Ashoka?

Answer: (b) James Prinsep

James Prinsep, an officer in the mint of the East India Company, deciphered the Brahmi script of Ashoka's inscriptions in 1838. Once Brahmi could be read, historians found that the king named in them, Piyadassi, was Ashoka.

• ✓ (b) Prinsep deciphered Brahmi and Kharosthi in the 1830s and read Ashokan Brahmi in 1838. NCERT says he also found that most inscriptions named a king called Piyadassi, meaning “pleasant to behold”.
• ✗ (d) William Jones came to Calcutta in 1783 as a junior judge of the Company's Supreme Court and is remembered as an Orientalist scholar; he did not read Ashokan Brahmi.
• ✗ (a) Georg Bühler was a later scholar of Indian inscriptions; the first decipherment was Prinsep's.
• ✗ (c) Max Müller is known for editing and translating Sanskrit texts such as the Rig Veda, not for deciphering Ashoka's edicts.

Remember · James Prinsep deciphered Ashokan Brahmi in 1838; the Piyadassi of the inscriptions was identified as Ashoka.

📘 Read it in NCERT: Class 12 Themes in Indian History, Part I, Ch 2 (practise this chapter) · Class 12 Themes in Indian History, Part I, Ch 2 (practise this chapter)

Question and answer: UPSC's official GS Paper I (2016, Series A) — paper ↗ · answer key ↗. Explanation: Minimalist IAS, checked 30 Sept 2026 (how we verify). · Report an error