Maurya and Shunga Art c5.16.1

c5.16.1

But the more important evidence of Achaemenian cultural influence on the Maurya court and Maurya cultural ideology is afforded by the accounts of the city and royal palace of Pāṭaliputra left by classical authors evidently following Megasthenes and by the actual remains of the same city and palace unearthed by Waddell and Spooner.³² We have it in Strabo that the city of Palibothra was situated at the confluence of the Ganges and the Erannoboas ( Hiraṇyavāha, the modern Son ); it was 80 stadia in length and 15 in breadth and was of the shape of a parallelogram. The city was surrounded by a wooden wall pierced with loop-holes for the discharge of arrows, crowned with 560 towers and provided with 60 gates. In sumptuousness and magnificence according to Strabo, Pāṭaliputra compared very favourably with Susa and Ekbatana. Waddell’s exacavations actually laid bare the remains of what had been once the city wall, and Spooner later brought to light remains of huge wooden buildings at Bulandibagh and Kumrahar, both near Patna. The remains of one of these buildings are of particular significance—those of a pillared hall in which stone columns were employed to support the roof. Of the eighty pillars that had once stood on a wooden platform and supported a wooden roof Spooner was able to discover the entire lower part of at least one in almost perfect condition ; it is more or less like an Asokan pillar, smooth, highly polished and made of grey Chunar sand-stone.