The Pillar Already Had Writing on It

The pillar already had writing on it.

It stands at Prayag, where the Ganga and the Yamuna meet. Ashoka put it up in the third century before Christ. Cut round it are his great pillar edicts. The first and second are whole, the sixth nearly so. There is one written to his men at Kaushambi, about keeping the Buddhist order from splitting. And there is the Queen's Edict. It is there so that the gifts of his second queen, Karuvaki, would be put down as hers.