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| an. wikimedia.org |
carving of four lions being used in all government bonds, passports, stamp papers, court stamps, etc. This unique carving once topped one of Ashoka's pillars at Sarnath.
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| Ashoka's pillar.Lumbini, Nepal. www.columbia.edu |
The great Mauryan king Ashoka during his reign in the 3rd century BC erected what are later called "Pillars of Ashoka". They were built at Buddhist monasteries, many prominent sites from the life of the Buddha and places of pilgrimage. The columns carry inscriptions addressed to the monks and nuns. The Ashoka pillars are a series of columns dispersed across the Indian subcontinent, erected or at least inscribed with edicts by the ruler.
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| an. wikimedia.org |
The following are interesting facts about Ashoka's pillars:
01. They are the earliest known stone pillars with inscriptions and in the earlier period before 3rd century BC only wooden pillars topped by animal sculptures in copper metal existed; none have survived.
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| Ashok's edicts, locationswww.indmaps.com |
03. Among the seven remaining complete capitals, five with lions, one with an elephant and one with a zebu bull are well-recorded. One of them, the four lions of Sarnath, has become the State Emblem of India.
04. Two pillars were relocated by Firoz Shah Tughlaq to Delhi and under the Mogul rule, many of these pillars were relocated with the removal of animal capital. It was done by dragging them over a hundred plus miles from original place to the new location.
05. The average height of the pillars is 40 to 50 feet, each weighing as much as whopping 50 tons.
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| Ashoka's pillar,Feroz Shah kotla, Delhi. Alamy |
06. These pillars were meant to commemorate the visit of Ashoka to those places.
07. The pillars are carved from two-types of sandstone (buff colored and fine grained) quarried from Chunar near Varanasi or red-white colored from Mathura region. It seems the pillars were transported to their sites, before or after carving, however, it is not clear.
08. That the carvings are uniform suggests that they were done in the same region by the craftsmen and then taken to different places for erection. It seems that the selected stone was taken from Mathura and Chunar to various sites where the pillars are located now, and there it was cut to size and carved by talented craftsmen
09. The pillars, basically, consist of four component parts in two pieces: the three sections of the capitals make a a single piece, often made of a different stone to that of the monolithic cylindrical, circular shaft to which they are attached by a large metal dowel.
The shaft tappers upwards.
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| Ashoka's pilla, Sanchi.letsseeindia.com |
10. The amazing feature of the Mauryan art is the crowning animals shown either seated or standing, always in the round and chiseled as a single piece with the abaci (slab on the capital of column).
11. The Ashoka's pillar edicts are mainly monolithic i.e. cut out a single piece of stone. They do not stand on base. The inscriptions have definite cultural and religious connotations.
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12. Unlike Persian pillars that contain human figurine, Ashokan pillars contain the animal capital atop the pillar. Yet another distinction is Ashka's cylindrical pillars taper upward and differ from Persian pillars that have uniform cross section through-out.
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| One of the Pillars of Ashoka, in Vaishali.en.wikipedia.org |
13. Five of the pillars of Ashoka possibly marked the course of the ancient Royal highway from Pataliputra to the Nepal valley - two at Rampurva, one each at Vaishali, Lauriya-Araraj and Lauria Nandangarh.
14. The Vaishali lion of Ashoka is quite impressive, so is the depiction of a lion at Nineveh.
15. Ashoka' source of inspiration could be: Achaemenid column with lotus capital and animals, Persepolis, 6th-4th c. BCE.
16. Foreign influences could be noticed in the carving of capital, so is the design in the abacus - Greek art.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pillars_of_Ashoka