Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c11.41

c11.41

Fa-Hien (399-413 A.D.) noticed only six pillars and Yuan Chwang (629-645 A.D.) who travelled more extensively, observed fifteen of them; but they seem to have missed quite a lot for the actual number now discovered exceeds what they have recorded. Of the six seen by Fa-Hien two stood on each side of the door of the Jetavana Vihāra at Śrāvastī, one with a wheel and the other with a Bull as capital; one at Sāṅkāśya, erected behind the monastery, 50 (sic. 30) cubits high, with a lion on the top of it, shining and transparent, as it were, of lapis lazuli; the fourth, an inscribed one, on the way to Vaiśālī from Kuśinagara (most probably the Lauriā-Ararāj pillar) bearing Pillar-Edicts (1-6); the fifth at Pāṭaliputra, 30 cubits high bearing an inscription saying: Aśoka made a gift of Jambudvīpa to the Saṅgha and then redeemed it from them with money, repeating it three times, from which the pillar became known as the Jambudvīpa Pillar; the sixth also at Pāṭaliputra, more than 30 ft. high, with a lion capital and erected by Aśoka to mark the building of a city named Ne-Le and with an inscription recording the year and circumstances of the city's foundations. The Jambudvīpa Pillar appears to be the same as found to the south of Kumrahar village near old Pāṭaliputra, only two large fragments of it being discovered. Of the second Pāṭaliputra Pillar Mukherjee found innumerable fragments to the north of Mauryan palace and it is inferred that the pillar was destroyed by fire.