The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c33.14

v1.c33.14

The pillars or *lāts*, as they are commonly called, are of singularly massive proportions, consisting of a round and slightly tapering monolithic shaft with bell-shaped capital surmounted by an abacus and crowning sculpture in the round, the whole rising to an average height, from base to summit, of between 40 and 50 feet. One of the best preserved, though not the best in style, is that at Lauriyā Nandangarh, illustrated in Pl. XI, 24. The crowning figure on this pillar is a lion, and the relief which adorns the abacus a row of geese, symbolical, perhaps, of the flock of the Buddha's disciples. In other cases, the single lion is replaced by a group of lions set back to back with or without some sacred symbol between them, or by an elephant or bull, while the abacus is adorned with a lotus and honeysuckle design or with wheels and animals alternating. Shafts of a precisely similar pattern, but smaller proportions, were employed in the great hall at Patna, but there the capitals and entablature appear to have been of wood. The dignified, massive simplicity of these pillars is common to all the other architectural remains of the Maurya epoch. The rail at Sārnāth and the throne at Buddh Gayā are devoid of ornament, but each is cut entire and with exquisite precision from a single block of stone, and the plainness of the umbrellas is only relieved by delicately defined ribs radiating on their under side. Equally chaste and severe are the dwellings and chapels excavated for the Ājīvika ascetics in the hills of Bihār. Like the *chaityas* or hermitages from which they were copied, these consist of a small oblong chamber (in one instance with rounded ends) with or without a circular apartment at one extremity, but in only one example is the timber work of their prototypes reproduced in the stone. The example referred to is the Lomas Rishi Cave, the ornamental façade of which (Pl. XI, 25) is an accurate replica of a wooden model. This particular cave, however, bears no inscriptions either of Açoka or of Daçaratha, and the fact that its interior was left in an unfinished state suggests that it was the latest of the whole group. Probably, it was not excavated until after the close of Daçaratha's reign.