Lion Capital of Ashoka, Sarnath, Mauryan period, ca. 250 BCE. Collection: Sarnath Museum, Uttar Pradesh. Image courtesy Chrisi1964, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Excerpt from "On Maurya Art"
An even more powerful symbol of universality, at least to those who could read it, is the Sarnath capital. The wheel that once surmounted the shared backs of the capital’s four addorsed lions likely refers both to the wheel of the law (dharmachakra), which the Buddha is said to have set in motion right there at Sarnath when he preached his first sermon. It also probably refers to the wheel of the ideal universal monarch, known as a chakravartin, literally wheel-turner, as Ashoka likely sought to present himself. By doing so, he linked his identity to that of the Buddha, who also was a wheel-turner as he set out the eight-fold path and Middle Way in his first sermon. In both cases, the wheel moves con- tinuously and ubiquitously through space, carrying the righteous message of the Buddha or the chakravartin. This capital, unlike any of the others, has an abacus adorned with four animals – a bull, lion, elephant and horse – each separated by a wheel, reinforcing the symbolism of the larger wheel atop the capital. The four addorsed lions represent the cardinal directions, as we learn from a much later manuscript in which the lions are labeled as if they roar the message of the Buddha or the chakravartin, Ashoka in this case, to the four corners. Indeed, one Buddhist text, the Maha-Sihanada Sutta (Great Discourse on the Lion’s Roar) explicitly links the wheel and lion with its refrain, “[the Buddha] roars his lion’s roar in the assemblies, and sets rolling the Wheel of Brahma [wheel of the law].”
The abacus of this capital at Sarnath even more specifically suggests univer- sality, referring to a myth regarding Lake Anavatapta, imagined to lie at the center of the world. At the center of the lake, a great waterspout arose, and from it were generated four streams, each channeled through the mouth of a gargoyle-like animal at the edge of the lake, the very four animals depicted on the abacus of this pillar. From there, the rivers flowed to the four corners of the earth. Jean Przyluski sees the pillar as representing the waterspout and the four animals on the abacus suggesting the streams not otherwise visually implied. The notion, however, is that, like the streams that flow to the corners of the earth, so the Buddha’s words and those of Ashoka inscribed on the pillar should have universal currency.
Source: Asher, Frederick. “On Maurya Art.” A Companion to Asian Art and Architecture, by Rebecca M. Brown and Deborah S. Hutton, Blackwell, 2011, pp. 421–443.
Note: Footnote notations referring to the full article have been removed from this text. For more information, see the original in the link above.
Annotated Image
Lion Capital of Ashoka, Sarnath, Mauryan period, ca. 250 BCE. Collection: Sarnath Museum, Uttar Pradesh. Image courtesy Chrisi1964, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- This entire piece was the capital, or top, of a pillar. The original pillar was carved from a single piece of stone and was 40 - 50 feet tall. The capital (shown here) is about 7 feet tall and also carved from a single block of sandstone. The pillar was placed at Sarnath, identified as the place where the Buddha gave his first sermon. Ashoka, leader of the Maurya Empire, placed pillars like this one at several Buddhist monasteries during the 3rd century BCE. This particular capital is also shown in the center of the modern flag of India.
- This horizontal disk is called the abacus. It sits between the capital and the pillar.
- There used to be a giant wheel standing upright between the lions' heads. This wheel represented the Dharmachakra (Wheel of Law). In Buddhism, dharma means the universal law that orders/governs the universe. The wheel is a Buddhist symbol in this context, but it is also meaningful in Hinduism.
- There are 4 lions on the capital, pointing to the four cardinal directions (north, south, east, west). Stylistically, some art historians have noted similarities between these lions and ones farther west, in Persia and the eastern Mediterranean. Ashoka lived in an interconnected world so it is possible that the artists who created the pillars were familiar with those styles; some of them might even have come from farther west. These lions symbolize the Buddha, but they also refer to Ashoka himself. The lion was an ancient symbol of royalty in South Asia. See the text passage for more detail.
- The abacus has 4 wheels on it, also representing the dharmachakra.
- In between the wheels are four animals: an elephant, a bull, a horse, and a lion. These animals were all associated with Buddhism. Stylistically, the elephant and the bull are very Indic. For example, the bull looks similar to bull stamps from the ancient Indus Valley Harappan civilization.
- The bottom of the capital is a lotus. This later became a common motif in both Hindu and Buddhist art.