The script written on Ashoka’s Pillars is
Brahmi
The pillar edicts are written in the Brahmi script — option 1.
The distinction the question rests on. A script is a system of writing; a language is what is written. Ashoka’s edicts are in the Prakrit language, written in the Brahmi script — so options 3 and 4 name languages, not scripts, and are wrong for that reason alone before any question of fact arises.
| Region of the empire | Script used | Language |
|---|---|---|
| Most of India | Brahmi | Prakrit |
| North-west, around Peshawar and Taxila | Kharosthi, written right to left | Prakrit |
| Afghanistan — Kandahar | Greek and Aramaic scripts | Greek and Aramaic |
Why Brahmi matters. It is the ancestor of almost every script of South and South-East Asia — Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Sinhala, Burmese, Thai and Tibetan all descend from it. It was deciphered in 1837 by James Prinsep, and that decipherment is one of the turning points of Indian historiography: it recovered the name and the reign of a king whom the tradition had almost forgotten, since the edicts refer to him as Devanampiya Piyadasi and the identification with Ashoka came only from the Maski and Gujarra inscriptions, which give his name outright.
About the pillars. Monolithic shafts of polished Chunar sandstone, each cut from a single block, thirty-odd feet high, with a bell-shaped capital carrying animal figures. The lion capital of Sarnath is the National Emblem of India, and the wheel on its abacus is the Ashoka Chakra on the national flag.
Why option 2 is included : Samaritan is a genuine ancient script, but of West Asia, and it has no Indian connection whatever.
Hence, the answer is Brahmi.
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