taxonomy question

[Artur Karp]

Dear George,

I apologize for not reacting to your post promptly.

 And thank you for the clarification.  If we follow the Vedic usage,
Asoka Edicts 'pasu' should be translated not as "animals" but as
"domestic (or: farm) animals". Ideologically less tempting, but it
makes perfect sense.

In the first Rock Edict (Girnar version) there appear two terms:
'jIvaM' and 'prANa'. Hultzsch translates them as "living being" and
"animal".

Where the text (line B) has: idha na kiMci jIvaM ArabhitpA
prajUhitavyaM, are we to understand that - following Hultzsch - "Here
no living being must be killed and sacrificed"? [Bloch: "Ici il est
défendu de sacrifier en tuant un vivant quelconque"]. Considering the
sacrificial context, the animal category represented by the  phrase
"living being" seems to be too broad.

We do not in fact know who were the clerks working for Aśoka. Is it
possible that they (and their king as well) just had no idea about the
rules of the Vedic sacrificial system?  Or was that system already
transformed to the extent that it allowed to sacrifice "any living
being"?

Regards,

Artur Karp