Srinagar, July 25 -- By Iqbal Ahmad

Calcutta, 1837. James Prinsep leans over a table crowded with coins, stone rubbings, and sheets of copied inscriptions, the candlelight catching curling letters that generations of scholars have failed to read.

Pillars raised by Emperor Ashoka more than two thousand years earlier still stand throughout the Indian subcontinent, their surfaces carved with commands and reflections from one of history's great rulers.

The words have defeated generations of would-be readers, but Prinsep, working long past midnight, begins to notice repeating patterns in the Brahmi script carved into temple walls and copper plates.

Within months, the puzzle gives way, and Ashoka speaks again for the first time in nearly tw...