Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c12.s3.t7.25

c12.s3.t7.25

AŚOKA PILLAR—There were many pillars on the Sanchi plateau, mostly of the Gupta age but the earliest and most remarkable is the Pillar of Aśoka near the South Gateway of the Stūpa distinguished by its perfect workmanship and bearing an inscription. It is now a broken stump but the lion capital bearing on the drum a row of Haṃsas (Haṃsamālā) is still preserved in the museum. The pillar, when in tact, was about 42' in height and consisted of a round and slightly tapering monolithic shaft, with a purāṇaghaṭa and foliage top as on the Sarnath pillar surmounted by an abacus and four lions back to back; the whole is finely finished and polished to a remarkable lustre from top to bottom. It must have been the outcome of the Emperor’s personal interest in the monuments. The abacus is adorned with four honeysuckle designs separated one from the other by pairs of geese. The lions afford a noble example of the sculptor’s art as seen in their spirited vitality although somewhat conventionalised, the tense development of the muscles, the swelling veins, the strong set of the claws and the treatment of the manes in short schematic curls. The sandstone out of which the pillar was carved come from the quarries of Chunar several hundred miles away and it speaks to the great skill of Aśoka’s engineers to have transported a block of stone over forty feet in length and weighing almost as many tons and hoisting it up the steep hillside at Sanchi. (See p. 101).