The Pillars of Ashoka
Ashoka ascended to the throne in 269 BC inheriting the Mauryan empire
King Ashoka, who many believe was an early convert to Buddhism, decided to erect pillars that rose some 50 feet into the sky.
Buddhism did not become the state religion
The pillars were raised throughout the Magadha region in the North of India that had emerged as the center of the first Indian empire, the Mauryan dynasty.
Written on these pillars, intertwined in the message of Buddhist compassion, were the merits of King Ashoka.
The third emperor of the Mauryan dynasty, Ashoka (pronounced Ashoke), was the first leader to accept Buddhism and thus the first major patron of Buddhist art.
Ashoka made a dramatic conversion to Buddhism after witnessing the carnage that resulted from his conquest of the village of Kalinga.
He adopted the teachings of the Buddha known as the Four Noble Truths, referred to as the dharma (the law):
Life is suffering (suffering=rebirth) the cause of suffering is desire the cause of desire must be overcome when desire is overcome, there is no more suffering (suffering=rebirth)
Ashoka also pledged to follow the Six Cardinal Perfections (the Pāramitās), which were codes of conduct created after the Buddha’s death providing instructions for the Buddhist practitioners to follow a compassionate Buddhist practice.
Only 19 of the original pillars survive and many are in fragments. The first pillar was discovered in the 16th century.
Most of the pillars were topped by sculptures of animals.
Each pillar is also topped by an inverted lotus flower, which is the most pervasive symbol of Buddhism .
Most pillars are topped with a single lion or a bull in either seated or standing positions. The Buddha was born into the Shakya or lion clan. The lion, in many cultures, also indicates royalty or leadership.
The animals are always in the round and carved from a single piece of stone.
Since the 17th century, 150 Ashokan edicts have been found carved into the face of rocks and cave walls as well as the pillars, all of which served to mark his kingdom, which stretched across northern India and south to below the central Deccan plateau and in areas now known as Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.
The rocks and pillars were placed along trade routes and in border cities where the edicts would be read by the largest number of people possible.
They were also erected at pilgrimage sites such as at Bodh Gaya, the place of Buddha’s Enlightenment, and Sarnath, the site of his First Sermon, and Sanchi, where the Mahastupa, the Great Stupa of Sanchi, is located.
The script was Brahmi, the language from which all Indic languages developed. A few of the edicts found in the western part of India are written in a script that is closely related to Sanskrit, and a pillar in Afghanistan is inscribed in both Aramaic and Greek—demonstrating Ashoka’s desire to reach the many cultures of his kingdom.
The pillars (and the stupas) were created in the Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle) period.
Hinayana is the first stage of Buddhism, roughly dated from the 6th century to the 1st century B.C.E., in which no images of the Buddha were made.
The memory of the historical Buddha and his teachings was enough to sustain the practitioners.
But several symbols became popular as stand-ins for the human likeness of the Buddha. The lotus, as noted above, is one. The lion, which is typically seen on the Ashokan pillars, is another. The wheel (cakra) is a symbol of both samsara, the endless circle of birth and rebirth, and the dharma, the Four Noble Truths.
Why a pillar? Persian artists came to Ashoka’s empire in search of work, bringing with them the form of the pillar, which was common in Persian art.
it was already an established Indian art form. In both Buddhism and Hinduism, the pillar symbolized the axis mundi.
