Pillars of Ashoka

Explore the iconic Pillars of Ashoka with this meta description. Built by the Indian emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BC, these monumental columns stand as silent guardians of a bygone era

Discover the intricately carved edicts and symbols that adorn these pillars, reflecting Ashoka’s embrace of Buddhism and his commitment to ethical rule. Learn about the geographical distribution of these pillars in the Indian subcontinent and their role in spreading Ashoka’s message of peace and moral conduct. Discover the historical and architectural significance of the Ashoka Pillars, symbols of the ruler’s transformational journey from conquest to a legacy based on compassion and moral principles.

Pillars of Ashoka

Introduction

The Ashoka Pillars are a series of monolithic pillars spread across the Indian subcontinent, erected or at least described in edicts by the 3rd Mauryan Emperor Ashoka the Great, who ruled from ca. 268 to 232 BC. Ashoka used the term Dhaṃma Thambha (Dharma Stambha), i.e. “Pillars of Dharma”, to describe his pillars. These pillars represent important architectural monuments of India, most of them exhibiting the characteristic Mauryan luster. Twenty pillars erected by Ashoka still survive, including those inscribed with his edicts. Only a few with animal heads survive, of which seven complete specimens are known. The two pillars were moved by Firuz Shah Tughlaq to Delhi. Several of the pillars were later relocated by the rulers of the Mughal Empire, with the animal capitals removed. Averaging between 12 and 15 m (40 and 50 ft) in height and weighing up to 50 tons each, the pillars were dragged, sometimes hundreds of miles, to where they were erected.

Ashoka as a Buddhist

Ashoka came to the throne in 269 BCE and inherited the Mauryan Empire founded by his grandfather, Chandragupta Maurya. Ashoka is said to have been a tyrant at the beginning of his reign. Eight years after his accession, he led a campaign in Kalinga where, according to him, “one hundred and fifty thousand people were deported, one hundred thousand were slain and as many perished.” As he explains in his edicts, after this event, Ashoka converted to Buddhism, regretting the loss of life. Buddhism became the state religion and, with the support of Ashoka, spread rapidly. The inscriptions on the pillars issue edicts of morality based on Buddhist principles. They were added in the 3rd century BC.

Construction of the Ashoka Pillars

(1) The traditional idea that they were all originally quarried at Chunar, south of Varanasi, and taken to their sites, either before or after carving, “can no longer be asserted with certainty”, and instead the pillars appear to have been carved in two types of stone. Some were of mottled red and white sandstone from the Mathura region; others were of a yellowish-brown fine-grained hard sandstone, usually with small black spots, quarried at Chunar near Varanasi. The uniformity of style in the capitals of the columns suggests that they were all carved by craftsmen from the same region. It would therefore seem that the stone was transported from Mathura and Chunar to the various places where the pillars were found, and there it was cut and carved by artisans.

(2) Pillars have four parts of two pieces The three parts of the capitals are made of one piece, often of a different stone than that of the monolithic shaft, to which a large metal dowel attaches them. The shafts are always plain and smooth, circular in cross-section, tapering slightly upwards, and always carved from a single piece of stone. There is no distinct base at the bottom of the shaft. The lower parts of the capitals have the shape and appearance of a gently arched bell formed by lotus petals. Abaci are of two types: square and smooth, and circular and decorated, and have different proportions. The crown animals are masterpieces of Mauryan art & architecture, depicted either seated or standing, always round and carved as one piece with the abaci. Probably all or most of the other columns, which now lack them, once had capital letters and animals. They are also used to commemorate events in the Gautam Buddha‘s life.

(3) Seven animal sculptures from the Ashoka pillars survive today. These form “the first important group of Indian stone sculptures”, although they are thought to have descended from an existing tradition of wooden columns surmounted by animal sculptures in copper, none of which survive. It is also possible that some of the stone pillars predate Ashoka’s reign.

Western origin of Ashoka’s columns

(1) The extent of the influence of Achaemenid Persia, where the capitals of the roof-supporting columns at Persepolis bear similarities, and the “rather cold, hieratic style” of the Sarnath lion capital have been much debated. of Ashoka in particular shows “obvious Achaemenid and Sargonid influence”. India and the Achaemenid Empire had been in close contact since the Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley civilization, from ca. 500 to 330 BC.

(2) Hellenistic influence has also been suggested. In particular, the abaci on some pillars (notably the Rampurva bull, the Sankisa elephant, and the capital of the Allahabad pillar) use bands of motifs such as the bead and disc pattern, ovolo, flaming palmettes, lotuses, which are probably of Greek origin, and Middle Eastern art. Such examples can also be seen in the remains of the Mauryan capital, Pataliputra.

(3) It has also been suggested that 6th-century Greek columns such as the Sphinx of Naxus, a 12.5-meter animal-crowned Ionic column at the religious center of Delphi, may have been the inspiration for Ashoka’s columns. Many similar columns crowned with sphinxes have been discovered in ancient Greece, such as in Sparta and Athens, and some were used as funerary stelae. The Greek sphinx, a lion with the face of a human woman, was considered a person of ferocious strength and was seen as a guardian who often lined the entrances to temples or royal tombs.

Stylistic Argument for the Ashoka Columns

(1) Although influence from the West, particularly the Persian columns of Achaemenid Persia, is generally accepted, there are several differences between these and the columns. Persian columns are built in segments, while Ashokan pillars are monoliths, like some much later Roman columns. Most Persian pillars have a fluted shaft, while Mauryan pillars are plain, and Persian pillars serve as load-bearing structures, while Ashokan pillars are separate free-standing monuments. There are other differences in the decoration. Commenting on some of the differences and similarities, Indian historian Upinder Singh writes that “If the Ashokan pillars as a whole cannot be attributed to Persian influence, they must have had an undocumented prehistory in the subcontinent, perhaps a tradition of wood carving.” The transition from stone to wood was made in one great leap, no doubt spurred on by the imperial taste and ambition of the Maurya emperors.”

(2) Whatever the cultural and artistic borrowings from the West, the Ashoka Pillars, along with much of Mauryan art and architectural gems such as the city of Pataliputra or the Barabar Caves, remain outstanding in their achievements and often compare favorably with the rest of the world in that period. Commenting on Mauryan sculpture, John Marshall once wrote of the “extraordinary accuracy and precision which characterize all Mauryan work and which has never, we dare say, been surpassed even by the best workmanship on Athenian buildings”.

List of Ashoka Pillars

The five Ashoka pillars—two at Rampurva, one each at Vaishali, Lauriya Araraj, and Lauria Nandangarh—may have marked the course of the ancient royal highway from Pataliputra to Nepal. Several of the pillars were relocated by later rulers of the Mughal Empire, removing the animal capitals. Two Chinese medieval pilgrimage accounts record sightings of several columns that have now disappeared: Faxian records six and Xuanzang fifteen, of which only five can be identified with surviving columns. All extant columns showing any animal crown statues and written edicts are as follows:

(A) Complete standing pillars or pillars with Ashokan inscriptions

• (1) Delhi-Topra Pillar, in Feroz Shah Kotla Fort, Delhi (Pillar Edicts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII); moved in 1356 from Topra Kalan in Yamunanagar district of Haryana to Delhi by Firuz Shah Tughluq.
• (2) Delhi-Meerut, Delhi Ridge, Delhi (Pillar Edicts I, II, III, IV, V, VI); moved from Meerut to Delhi by Firuz Shah Tughluq in 1356.
• (3) Nigali Sagar (or Nigliva, Nigalihawa), near Lumbini, Nepal Pillar, missing capital, one edict of Ashoka Built in the 20th regnal year of Ashoka (c. 249 BC).
• (4) Rupandehi, near Lumbini, Nepal. It was also built in the 20th regnal year of Ashoka (c. 249 BCE) to commemorate Ashoka’s pilgrimage to Lumbini. The capital is missing, but it was a horse.
• (5) Pillar of Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh (originally located at Kaushambi and probably moved to Allahabad by Jahangir; Edicts I-VI, Queen’s Edict, Schizma Edict).
• (6) Rampurva, Champaran, Bihar Two columns: lion with edicts of columns I, II, III, IV, V, and VI; bull without inscriptions. The bull capital counter features honeysuckle and palmette designs derived from Greek designs.
• (7) Sanchi, near Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, four lions, Edict of Schism
• (8) Sarnath, near Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, four lions, pillar inscription, schism edict This is the famous “Lion Capital of Ashoka” used in the national emblem of India.
• (9) Lauriya-Nandagarth, Champaran, Bihar, single lion, pillars I, II, III, IV, V, VI.
• (10) Lauriya Araraj, Champaran, Bihar (Pillar Edicts I, II, III, IV, V, VI).
• (11) Vaishali, Bihar, lion-free, no inscription.
• (12) The Amaravati pillar fragment is quite problematic. It consists of only six lines in Brahmi, which are hardly decipherable. Only the word Vijaya (victory) can be discerned, probably a word also used by Ashoka. Sircar, who gives a detailed study, believes that it probably belongs to the Ashokan pillar.

(B) Pillars without Ashokan inscriptions

There are also some known fragments of Ashokan pillars without restored Ashokan inscriptions, such as the Ashoka pillar at Bodh Gaya, Kausambi, Gotihawa, Prahladpur (now in Government Sanskrit College), Varanasi, Fatehabad, Bhopal, Sadagarli, Udayagiri-Vidisha, Kushinagar, Arrah (Masarh) Basti, Bhikana Pahari, Bulandi Bagh (Pataliputra), Sandalpu, and several others, as well as a broken pillar at Bhairon (“Lat Bhairo” in Benares), which was destroyed to a stump during the riots of 1908. The Chinese monks Fa-Hsien and Hsuantsang also reported pillars at Kushinagar, Jetavana Monastery at Sravasti, Rajagriha, and Mahasala, which have not been restored to this day.

inscriptions of Ashoka

The pillar inscriptions contain fairly standard text. The pillar inscriptions join other, more numerous, Ashokan inscriptions on natural rock faces to form a body of texts known as the Edicts of Ashoka. Scattered across the regions of present-day Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, these inscriptions represent the first tangible evidence of Buddhism. The edicts detail Ashoka’s Dhamma policy, a serious attempt to solve some of the problems facing a complex society. In these inscriptions, Ashoka is called the “beloved servant of the gods” (Devanampiyadasi). The inscriptions revolve around several recurring themes: Ashoka’s conversion to Buddhism, an account of his efforts to spread Buddhism, his moral and religious precepts, and his social and animal welfare program. The edicts were based on Ashoka’s ideas about governance, people’s behavior towards each other, and religion. Alexander Cunningham, one of the first to study the pillar inscriptions, notes that they are written in Eastern, Central, and Western Prakrits, which he calls “the Panjabi or North-Western Dialect, the Ujjaini or Central Dialect, and the Magadh or Eastern Dialect.” They are written in the Brahmi script.

Smaller Edict Pillars

Contains inscriptions recording their dedications, as well as Schism Edicts and Queen’s Edicts. They were written around the 13th year of Ashoka’s reign. Sanchi Pillar (schism edict), Sarnath Pillar (schism edict), Allahabad Pillar (schism edict, Queen Edict, and also Major Pillar Edicts), Lumbini (Rummindei), Nepal (upper part broken off when struck by lightning; original horse capital mentioned by Xuanzang missing) was built by Ashoka where the Buddha was born. Nigali Sagar (or Nigliva), near Lumbini, Rupandehi District, Nepal (originally near Buddha Konakarnana Stupa),

Main Pillar Edicts

The 6 Main Pillar Edicts of Asoka have been found at Kaushambi (Allahabad), Topra (now Delhi), Meerut (now Delhi), Lauriya-Araraj, Lauriya-Nandangarh, Rampurva (Champaran), and 7th Pillar Delhi-Topra. These pillar edicts include:

• I. Asoka’s Principle of Human Protection
• II. It defines dhamma as a minimum of sins, many virtues, compassion, generosity, truthfulness, and purity.
• III. It removes the sins of hardness, cruelty, anger, pride, etc.
• IV. It deals with the duties of civil servants
• V. A list of animals and birds that should not be killed on certain days, and another list of animals that may not be killed on any occasion. Describes the release of 25 prisoners by Asoka.
• VI. Work done by Asoka for Dhamma politics He says that all sects desire both self-control and purity of mind.
• VII. Testamentary edict

Pillars restraining their animals

(1) The most famous capital (four in Sarnath, Uttar Pradesh) was built by Emperor Ashoka around 250 BC, also called the “Ashoka Column”. Four lions are sitting back to back. At present, the Pillar remains in the same place, while the Lion Capital is in the Sarnath Museum. This Lion Capital of Ashoka from Sarnath was adopted as the national emblem of India, and the “Ashoka Chakra” wheel from its base was placed in the center of the flag of India.

(2) The lions probably originally supported the 24-spoke dharmachakra wheel as extant in a 13th-century replica built by the Thai king Mangrai at Wat Umong near Chiang Mai, Thailand. The pillar at Sanchi also has a similar but damaged four-lion capital. There are two pillars in Rampurva, one crowned by a bull and the other by a lion. Sankissa only has a damaged elephant capital that is largely unpolished, although the counter at least partially is. No pillar shaft has been found, and may never have been built at the site.

(3) The Vaishali pillar has one lion capital. The location of this pillar is adjacent to the site where the Buddhist monastery and sacred coronation tank stood. Several stupas have been discovered, indicating a remote campus of the monastery. The lion faces north, the direction the Buddha took on his last journey. The identification of the excavation site in 1969 was aided by the fact that this pillar was still protruding from the ground. There are more such pillars in this larger area, but they all lack capital.

Pillar at Prayagraj

There is a pillar at Prayagraj with inscriptions from Ashoka and later inscriptions attributed to Samudragupta and Jehangir. It is clear from the inscription that the pillar was first erected at Kaushambi, an ancient city about 30 kilometers west of Allahabad, which was the capital of the Kosala Kingdom, and moved to Allahabad, probably under Muslim rule. The pillar is now located inside the Allahabad Fort, also a royal palace, built in the 16th century by Akbar at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers. Since the fort is occupied by the Indian Army, it is essentially closed to the public, and a special permit is required to see the pillar. The Ashokan inscription is in Brahmi and is dated around 232 BC. A later inscription attributed to the second king of the Gupta Empire, Samudragupta, is in the more refined Gupta script, a later version of Brahmi, and is dated to around 375 AD. This inscription states the extent of the empire that Samudragupta built during his long reign. At that time, he had already been king for forty years and would reign for another five. An even later inscription in Persian is by the Mughal emperor Jahangir. Akshay Vat, an Indian fig tree of great antiquity, is also located in Akbar Fort. The Ramayana refers to this tree, under which Lord Rama was said to have prayed during his exile.

Pillars at Lauriya-Areraj and Lauriya-Nandangarh

The pillar at Lauriya-Nandangarh, 23 km from Bettiah in West Champaran district, Bihar, has a single lion capital. The hump and hind legs of a lion project beyond the abacus. The pillar at Lauriya-Areraj in the East Champaran district of Bihar currently lacks any capital.

Erecting the Pillars

Ashoka’s pillars may have been erected using the same methods used to erect ancient obelisks. Roger Hopkins and Mark Lehrner conducted several obelisk-erecting experiments, including a successful attempt to erect a 25-ton obelisk in 1999. This was followed by two experiments at erecting smaller obelisks and two failed attempts to erect a 25-ton obelisk.

Rediscovery

(1) A number of pillars were overthrown either by natural causes or by iconoclasts and gradually rediscovered. In the 16th century, the English traveler Thomas Coryat noticed one in the ruins of Old Delhi. At first, he assumed it was made of brass from the way it shone, but upon closer inspection, he discovered it was made of highly polished sandstone with vertical writing that resembled the form of Greek. In the 1830s, James Prinsep began to decipher them with the help of Captain Edward Smith and George Turnour. They discovered that the writing refers to King Piyadasi, who was also an epithet of the Indian ruler known as Ashoka, who ascended the throne 218 years after the Buddha’s enlightenment. Scholars have since found 150 Ashoka inscriptions, carved into rocks or on stone pillars, marking a territory that stretched across northern India and southward under the central Deccan plateau. These pillars were placed in strategic locations near border towns and trade routes.

(2) The Sanchi pillar was found by F.O. Oertelin in 1851 in the excavations led by Sir Alexander Cunningham, the first head of the Archaeological Survey of India. No traces of the Sarnath Pillar, mentioned in the accounts of medieval Chinese pilgrims, remained above ground when Indian Civil Service Engineer F.O. Oertel, with no real experience in archaeology, was allowed to excavate there in the winter of 1904–05. He first uncovered the remains of a Gupta shrine west of the main stupa, overlying an Ashokan structure. To the west of this, he found the lowest part of the pillar, upright but broken off near the ground. Most of the rest of the pillar was found in three sections nearby, and after the Sanchi capital was excavated in 1851, the search for an equivalent continued, and the Lion Capital of Ashoka, the most famous of the group, was found nearby. It was finer in workmanship and in much better condition than that of Sanchi. The pillar appeared to have been deliberately destroyed at some point. The finds were recognized as so important that the first local museum in India (and one of the few in the world at the time) was established for them.

Similar Pillars

A 6th-century pillar at the tomb of Xiao Jing, or Emperor Jing of the Western Liang, is similar to the Ashoka Pillar.

Conclusion

The Ashoka Pillars are among the oldest known stone sculptural remains from India. Only another pillar fragment, the Pataliputra capital, is possibly of somewhat earlier date. It is believed that before the 3rd century BCE, wood rather than stone was used as the main material for Indian architectural structures, and that stone may have been adopted after interaction with the Persians and Greeks. A graphic representation of Ashoka’s lion capital on a pillar was adopted as the official national emblem of India in 1950. All of Ashoka’s pillars were erected in Buddhist monasteries, many important places in the life of the Buddha, and places of pilgrimage. Some columns bear inscriptions addressed to monks and nuns. Some were built to commemorate Ashoka’s visits. The main pillars are present in the Indian states of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and some parts of Haryana.

(FAQ) Questions and Answers about Pillars of Ashoka