Most of Ashoka's inscriptions were written in which language?

Most of Ashoka's inscriptions were written in Prakrit, the spoken language of ordinary people of that time.

About Prakrit in Ashoka's inscriptions:

• Prakrit was the everyday language of the people, unlike Sanskrit, which was the language of priests and scholars.
• By using Prakrit, Ashoka made sure that his messages (Dhamma) could be understood by common people.
• Different regional dialects of Prakrit were used in different parts of the empire; for example, the inscriptions in the east used an eastern (Magadhi) dialect, while those in the west and north-west used local dialects.
• The inscriptions were often read aloud to people who could not read.

Scripts used in Ashoka's inscriptions:

• In most of the empire, the script used was Brahmi, which was written from left to right.
• Most modern Indian scripts, such as Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil and Telugu, developed from Brahmi.
• In some regions, other scripts and languages were used, to suit local people.

Sanskrit in inscriptions:

• Sanskrit was used in inscriptions much later; one of the earliest long Sanskrit inscriptions is that of the Shaka ruler Rudradaman I (about 150 CE).
• In the Gupta period, Sanskrit became the main language of inscriptions.

Pali:

Pali is a Prakrit language used in the Theravada Buddhist canon, but Ashoka's inscriptions were not written in Pali as such.

Classical language status:

In October 2024, the Government of India declared Prakrit a classical language, along with Pali, Marathi, Assamese and Bengali.

Why not the other options?

• ✗Sanskrit was used in inscriptions from a later period.
• ✗Pali is the language of the Buddhist canon, but not of Ashoka's inscriptions.
• ✗Tamil inscriptions of this period were in the Tamil-Brahmi script, not by Ashoka.