Pillars of Ashoka

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View of the Asokan Pillar at Vaishali.

Fragment of the 6th Pillar Edict of Ashoka (238 BCE), in Brahmi, sandstone. British Museum.

The pillars of Ashoka are a series of columns dispersed throughout the northern Indian subcontinent, and erected by the Mauryan king Ashoka during his reign in the 3rd century BCE.

Many of the pillars are carved with proclamations reflecting Buddhist teachings: the Edicts of Ashoka. The most famous of the columns is the one that was erected at Sarnath, and is now displayed in the Sarnarth museum. It has been used as one of the central symbols of India, in particular on Indian banknotes.

The Sarnath pillar marks the site of the first sermon of the Buddha, where he taught the Dharma to five monks. The pillar bears one of the Edicts of Ashoka, an inscription against schism within the Buddhist community, which reads "No one shall cause division in the order of monks".

The Asokan pillar at Lumbini.

The pillar is a column surmounted by a capital, which consists of a canopy representing an inverted bell-shaped lotus flower, a short cylindrical abacus where alternate four 24-spoked Dharma wheels with four animals (an elephant, a bull, a horse, a lion in this order), and four lions facing the four cardinal directions. The four animals are believed to symbolize different steps of the Gautama Buddha's life:

The Elephant represents the Buddha's conception in reference to the dream of Queen Maya of a white elephant entered her womb.
The Bull, according to Foucher, represents the birth of the Buddha, as it happened during the month of Vaicakha (April-May), known to Buddhists as Vesak, under the zodiacal sign of the Taurus, during the full moon.^[1] The enlightenment and passing of the Buddha also occurred during the Taurus full moon. The bull is also the symbol of Shiva.
The Horse represents Kanthaka, the horse the Buddha rode for his Great Departure from palatial life.
The Lion represents the attainment of Buddhahood.

The four animals may also represent lesser Hindu deities as they existed at the time, and/or possibly how they were under the service of Buddha.

The four lions surmounting the capital symbolize the kingship of the Buddha and his rule over the four directions.

There are also non-religious interpretations to the symbolism of the pillars, describing the four lions as the symbol of Ashoka's rule over the four directions, the wheels as symbols of enlightened rule (Chakravartin), and the four animals as symbols of four surrounding territories of India:

the Lion of the north.
the Elephant of the east.
the Bull of the south.
the Horse of the west.

This secular interpretation is rather contradicted by the presence of the Edicts, which tend to make Ashoka's pillars a vehicle of religious proselytism rather that just a symbol of royal power.

[edit] Single lion capital

Front view of the single lion capital in Vaishali.

There exists in Vaishali, a pillar with a single lion capital erected by Ashoka. The location of this pillar is contiguous to the site were a Buddhist monastery and a sacred coronation tank stood. Excavations are still underway and several stupas, suggesting a far flung campus for the monastery, have been discovered. This pillar is from among the earlier Ashokan pillars because it has only one lion capital. The lion faces north, the direction Buddha took on his last voyage.[1] Identification of the site for excavation in 1958 was aided by the fact that this pillar still jutted out of the soil. More such pillars exist in this greater area but they are all devoid of the capital. Of special mention is the one in Nandangarh, 23 kms from Bettiah, Bihar for it suggests that these pillars possibly marked the course of the ancient Royal highway from Patliputra to Nepal valley.