Maski is a town and an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

in the

Raichur district Raichur District is an administrative district in the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located in the northeast part of the state and is bounded by Yadgir district in the north, Bijapur district, Karnataka, Bijapur and Bagalkot district in the n ...

of the state of

Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

.Amalananda Ghosh (1990), p282 It lies on the bank of the Maski river which is a tributary of the

Tungabhadra The Tungabhadra River () starts and flows through the state of Karnataka, India, for most of its course, then through Andhra Pradesh where it ultimately joins the Krishna River near Murvakonda. The Tungabhadra derives its name from two strea ...

. Maski derives its name from Mahasangha or Masangipura . The site came into prominence with the discovery of a

minor rock edict The Minor Rock Edicts of Ashoka (r. 269–233 BCE) are rock inscriptions which form the earliest part of the Edicts of Ashoka, and predate Ashoka's Major Rock Edicts. These are the first edicts in the Indian language of Emperor Ashoka, written ...

Emperor Ashoka Ashoka, also known as Asoka or Aśoka ( ; , ; – 232 BCE), and popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was List of Mauryan emperors, Emperor of Magadha from until #Death, his death in 232 BCE, and the third ruler from the Mauryan dynast ...

by C. Beadon in 1915.V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar (1993), p41 It was the first edict of

that contained the name ''Ashoka'' in it instead of the earlier edicts that referred him as ''Devanampriya''.O. C. Handa (1994), p197Vincent Arthur Smith (1998), p5 This edict was important to conclude that many edicts found earlier in the Indian sub-continent in the name of ''Devanampiye piyadasi'', all belonged to

. The edict is etched on a rock-face of ''Durgada-gudda'', one of the

gneiss Gneiss (pronounced ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. This rock is formed under p ...

ic outcrops that are present in the site. Maski is also the place on the Raichur Doab which was also under the hegemony of the imperial

Chola The Chola Empire, which is often referred to as the Imperial Cholas, was a medieval thalassocratic empire based in southern India that was ruled by the Chola dynasty, and comprised overseas dominions, protectorates and spheres of influence ...

empire and it was here that

Rajendra Chola I Rajendra I (26 July 971 – 1044), often referred to as Rajendra the Great, was a Chola Empire, Chola Emperor who reigned from 1014 to 1044. He was born in Thanjavur to Rajaraja I. His queen was Vanavan Mahadevi and he assumed royal power as ...

defeated Jayasimha II, the

Western Chalukya The Western Chalukya Empire ( ) ruled most of the western Deccan, South India, between the 10th and 12th centuries. This Kannada dynasty is sometimes called the ''Kalyani Chalukya'' after its regal capital at Kalyani, today's Basavakalyan i ...

ruler in battle in 1019-1020 AD.(2003), K.A.Nilakanta Sastri, p. 166

Excavation history

Maski was studied initially by

Robert Bruce Foote Robert Bruce Foote (22 September 1834 – 29 December 1912) was a British geologist and archaeologist who conducted geological surveys of prehistoric locations in India for the Geological Survey of India. For his contributions to Indian archaeolo ...

in 1870 and 1888. In 1915, C. Beadon, a mining engineer, discovered Ashoka's rock edict here. In 1935–37, the archaeological department of

Hyderabad state Hyderabad State () was a princely state in the Deccan region of south-central India with its capital at the city of Hyderabad. It is now divided into the present-day state of Telangana, the Kalyana-Karnataka region of Karnataka, and the ...

explored this region and in 1954,

Amalananda Ghosh Amalananda Ghosh (3 March 1910 – 1981) was an Indian archaeologist, author and editor of numerous works on India's ancient civilizations, and the organizer and director of archaeological expeditions during the mid-1900s. Education Ghosh was ...

excavated this place on behalf of the

Archaeological Survey of India The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is an Indian government agency that is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation and preservation of cultural historical monuments in the country. It was founded in 1861 by Alexander ...

Minor Rock Edict of Ashoka

The Maski version of

Minor Rock Edict The Minor Rock Edicts of Ashoka (r. 269–233 BCE) are rock inscriptions which form the earliest part of the Edicts of Ashoka, and predate Ashoka's Major Rock Edicts. These are the first edicts in the Indian language of Emperor Ashoka, written ...

No.1 was historically especially important in that it confirmed the association of the title "Devanampriya" ("Beloved-of-the-Gods") with

Ashoka Ashoka, also known as Asoka or Aśoka ( ; , ; – 232 BCE), and popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was List of Mauryan emperors, Emperor of Magadha from until #Death, his death in 232 BCE, and the third ruler from the Mauryan dynast ...

: Way to edict.JPG, Location of the Edict Venue of edict.JPG, Entrance File:The Ashoka edict.JPG, The

of Maski confirmed the association of the title "Devanampriya" with

File:Maski Edict Grafix.jpg, Transcription of the inscription of Emperor Ashoka on the rock edict at Maski File:Ashoka in Brahmi script.jpg, The name ''Ashoka'' in

Brahmi script Brahmi ( ; ; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system from ancient India. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as ...

, Maski

, c.259 BCE Maski inscription Buddha.jpg, The word "Buddha" in the Maski inscription.

Other findings

The excavations indicated that the region was occupied across four different cultural periods; Period I:

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

, Period II:

Megalithic A megalith is a large Rock (geology), stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. More than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified across Europe, ranging ...

, Period III: Early historical and Period IV:

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

. In Period I,

microlith A microlith is a small Rock (geology), stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 60,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia and Austral ...

s and blades made of

agate Agate ( ) is a banded variety of chalcedony. Agate stones are characterized by alternating bands of different colored chalcedony and sometimes include macroscopic quartz. They are common in nature and can be found globally in a large number of d ...

chert Chert () is a hard, fine-grained sedimentary rock composed of microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline quartz, the mineral form of silicon dioxide (SiO2). Chert is characteristically of biological origin, but may also occur inorganically as a prec ...

carnelian Carnelian (also spelled cornelian) is a brownish-red mineral commonly used as a semiprecious stone. Similar to carnelian is sard, which is generally harder and darker; the difference is not rigidly defined, and the two names are often used int ...

and

opal Opal is a hydrated amorphous form of silicon dioxide, silica (SiO2·''n''H2O); its water content may range from 3% to 21% by weight, but is usually between 6% and 10%. Due to the amorphous (chemical) physical structure, it is classified as a ...

are found. Ornamental beads of

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

shell Shell may refer to: Architecture and design * Shell (structure), a thin structure ** Concrete shell, a thin shell of concrete, usually with no interior columns or exterior buttresses Science Biology * Seashell, a hard outer layer of a marine ani ...

and other materials are also found. Dull-grey ware and painted-buff ware pottery are found, some of which were painted with linear patterns. Animal remains of cattle, buffalo, sheep and goat are also found. Period II saw the introduction of

iron Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...

and five different forms of burials were discovered. Lances,

ferrule A ferrule (a corruption of Latin ' "small bracelet", under the influence of ' "iron") is any of a number of types of objects, generally used for fastening, joining, sealing, or reinforcement. They are often narrow circular rings made from m ...

s, daggers and arrowheads were found, apart from beads of

gold Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...

and

terracotta Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta (; ; ), is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic OED, "Terracotta""Terracotta" MFA Boston, "Cameo" database fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware obj ...

objects. The pottery of Period II consisted of the megalithic red-and-black ware, all-black ware and red-slipped ware, some of which had graffiti on them. Coins were discovered in the Period III which also saw the use of Russet-coated painted ware. The earliest specimens of Indian

glass Glass is an amorphous (non-crystalline solid, non-crystalline) solid. Because it is often transparency and translucency, transparent and chemically inert, glass has found widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in window pane ...

were also discovered at Maski.Manfred G. Raschke (1978), p1029 A

cylinder seal A cylinder seal is a small round cylinder, typically about one inch (2 to 3 cm) in width, engraved with written characters or figurative scenes or both, used in ancient times to roll an impression onto a two-dimensional surface, generally ...

has also been found here.E. C. L. During Caspers (1975), p64

Transport

Maski is well connected by road. It lies on Bangalore-Gulbarga road. Maski ia around 425 km from Bangalore, 80 km from Raichur and 24 km from Sindhanur. Maski can be reached by KSRTC buses from all Major towns and cities in Karnataka. Raichur Junction, 80 km away, is the nearest railway station and Gangavathi Approximate driving distance between Gangavathi and Maski is 74 km or 46 miles.

Image gallery

File:Maski government college.jpg, Devanampriya Ashoka government first grade college and post graduation study centre, Maski File:Maski Sunset.jpg, Maski sunset view File:Maski Malllikarjun Temple.jpg, Maski Mallikarjun Temple File:Maski.jpg, Maski at night File:Maski in monsoon.jpg, Maski in monsoon File:Maski Canal view at night.jpg, Maski canal view at night Maski Panorama view.jpg, Maski panoramic view

References