Pillars of Ashoka

The pillars of Ashoka are a series of columns dispersed throughout the northern Indian subcontinent, and erected by the Mauryan king Ashoka during his reign in the 3rd century BCE. Originally, there must have been many pillars of Ashoka although only ten with inscriptions still survive. Averaging between forty and fifty feet in height, and weighing up to fifty tons each, all the pillars were quarried at Chunar, just south of Varanasi and dragged, sometimes hundreds of miles, to where they were erected. [ http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/ashoka.html ]

ingle lion capital

There exists in Vaishali, a pillar with a single lion capital erected by Ashoka. The location of this pillar is contiguous to the site where a Buddhist monastery and a sacred coronation tank stood. Excavations are still underway and several stupas suggesting a far flung campus for the monastery have been discovered. This pillar is different from the earlier Ashokan pillars because it has only one lion capital. The lion faces north, the direction Buddha took on his last voyage. [http://bstdc.bih.nic.in/Vaishali.htm] Identification of the site for excavation in 1969 was aided by the fact that this pillar still jutted out of the soil. More such pillars exist in this greater area but they are all devoid of the capital. Of special mention is the one in Nandangarh, 23 km from Bettiah, Bihar for it suggests that these pillars possibly marked the course of the ancient Royal highway from Patliputra to the Nepal valley.

History

The first Pillar of Ashoka was found in the 16 century by Thomas Coryat in the ruins of ancient Delhi. Initially he assumed that from the way it glowed that it was made of brass, but on closer examination he realized it was made of highly polished sandstone with upright script that resembled a form of Greek. In the 1830s James Princep began to decipher them with the help of Captain Edward Smith and Goerge Turnour. They determined that the script referred to King Piyadasi which was also the epithet of an Indian ruler known as Ashoka who came to the throne 218 years after Buddha's enlightment. Scholars have sinse found 150 of Ashoka's inscriptions, carved into the face of rocks or on stone pillars's marking out a domain that stretched across northern India and south below the central plateau of the Deccan. these were placed in strategic places near borders cities and trade routes.

Ashoka ascended to the throne in 269 BCE inheriting the empire founded by his grandfather Chandragupta Maura. Ashoka was reputedly a tyrant at the outset of his reign. Eight years after his accession he campaigned in Kalinga where in his own words, "a hundred and fifty thousand people were deported, a hundred thousand were killed and as many as that perished..." After this event Ashoka converted to Buddhism in remorse for the loss of life. Buddhism didn't become a state religion but with Ashoka's support it spread rapidly. The inscriptions on the pillars described edicts about morality based on Buddhist tenets. Legend has it that Ashoka built 84,000 Stupa's commemorating the events and relics of buddha's life. Some of these Stupa's contained networks of walls containing the hub spokes and rim of a wheel, while others contained interior walls in a swastica shape. The wheel represents the sun time and Buddhist law, while the swastica stands for the cosmic dance around a fixed center and guards against evil. [ Time Life Lost Civilizations series: Ancient India: Land Of Mystery (1994) p. 84-85,94-97 ] [ Oliphant, Margaret "The Atlas Of The Ancient World" 1992 p. 156-7 ]

Notes

ee also

* Mauryan art
* Image of a standing pillar of Ashoka
* A Gupta-period iron pillar at the Qutb complex
* Ashoka pillar in Southern India
* Ashoka's Major Rock Edict
* Lion Capital of Asoka
* National Emblem of India
* National Flag of India
* Ashoka Chakra

External links

* [http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/bce_299_200/ashoka/lioncapital/lioncapital.html For Pictures of the famous original "Lion Capital of Ashoka" preserved at the Sarnath Museum which has been adopted as the "National Emblem of India" and the Ashoka Chakra (Wheel) from which has been placed in the center of the "National Flag of India" - See "lioncapital" from Columbia University Website, New York, USA]