In this scholarly work the author discusses the significance of inscriptions and shows how they, as primary source material, play a major role in providing the factual underpinnings of the social, political, religious, cultural, and literary history of early India. This work provides an in-depth account, on the one hand, of the richness and variety of the information provided by them and; on the other, a description of the development of Buddhism in Asoka's time. The author is able to paint a vivid portrait of Asoka, the great Mauryan ruler, and his munificent patronage of and active steps in furthering the Buddhist faith. He shows too that following the Second Buddhist Council the Buddhist world saw a schism in the Buddhist Samgha and the formation of two major sects: the Sathaviravada or the Hinayana, on the one hand, and the Theravada or the Mahasangikam on the other, and that from these about eighteen.