The Mauryan Polity c11.s3.t6.8

c11.s3.t6.8

Mr. R. P. Chanda points out that the Mauryan pillars were primarily intended for worship.² Perhaps the pillar cult is as old as the chalcolithic period in the Indus valley.³ That the choice of the symbol was due to the influence exerted by the origin or nationality of the monks of an adjoining monastery, has no basis in fact. According to this assumption all the pillars in the north must possess the lion on their tops, in the east the elephant, in the south the horse, and in the west the bull. But the extant pillars do not conform to any such system. It is a historical fact that Aśoka did not erect most of them and hence was not responsible for the arrangement which we attribute to-day to him. It is therefore far from correct to say that these monuments were intended by the emperor to perpetuate the memory of the Buddha. An attempt has been made without much success to explain the symbols of the figure of a man on one of the monuments, of the Brāhmaṇi geese on the Lauṛiyā-Nandan-gaṛh pillar, and of the bell capital.⁴