Maurya and Shunga Art c6.2

c6.2

The highly polished, tall and well-proportioned columns with slightly tapering monolithic shafts and standing free in space, complete and independent by themselves, are admittedly the best representatives of the court art of the Mauryas. The columns that bear the edicts of Aśoka include those of Delhi-Mirat, Allahabad, Lauriya-Araraj, Lauriya-Nandangarh, Rampurva ( with lion capital ), Delhi-Topra, Sāṅkiśya, Sanchi and Sarnath ; the non-edict bearing columns known up till now include those of Rampurva ( with bull capital ), Basarh-Bakhira ( with single lion capital ) and Kosam ( capital not yet recovered ) ; the third category, that of columns bearing dedicatory inscriptions, includes atleast two well-known specimens, those of Rummindei and Nigali Sagar. Of these the capitals of Basarh-Bakhira and Lauriya-Nandangarh pillars are *in situ*; those of Rampurva ( both bull and lion-crowned ), Sāṅkiśya, Sarnath and Sanchi have been recovered in more or less damaged condition. The Lauriya-Nandangarh and Basarh-Bakhira pillars and one of the two Rampurva columns is crowned by a single lion seated on its haunches; the Sāṅkiśya pillar by a standing elephant; the second Rampurva column by a standing bull; and the Sarnath and Sanchi columns by four semi-lions united back to back. The Lauriya-Araraj column seems once to have been crowned by a Garuḍa capital,³⁷ while the fragment of a capital of Chunar sand-stone with Mauryan polish and probably of Mauryan date, recovered from a village called Salempur, Muzaffarpur district, shows that it consisted of four semi-bulls seated back to back on a plain square abacus, the animals themselves being super-imposed by a square block decorated with honey-suckle ornaments. It was more than once suggested that the Rummindei Pillar was once crowned by a horse,³⁸ but Prof. Barua thinks that the word ‘vigada’ means ‘young elephant’.