by John Irwin
Artibus Asiae, Vol. 44, No., pp. 247-265 (19 pages)
1983
-- Lumbini On Trial: The Untold Story, Lumbini Is An Astonishing Fraud Begun in 1896, by T. A. Phelps
-- The True Chronology of Aśokan Pillars, by John Irwin
-- The Asoka Pillars: A Challenging Interpretation, by India International Centre Quarterly
-- The Buddha and Dr. Fuhrer: An Archaeological Scandal, by Charles Allen]-- The Buddha and Dr. Fuhrer: An Archaeological Scandal, by Charles Allen
Highlights:
Students of ancient India have been brought up in the belief that the nation's earliest sculptured monuments -- so-called 'Asokan' pillars -- have been inspired and erected by Asoka, first Buddhist ruler of a united India. This belief continues to be perpetuated up to the present day by leaders of the Archaeological Survey of India, fully aware that it was born and nurtured under the British raj over the last 150 years...
Both the Rampurva Bull and the Sankisa Elephant are, in my opinion, masterpieces of underestimated antiquity and importance. Both sculptures are unquestionably of pre-Asokan and even pre-Buddhist origin, as I suggested a decade ago in my Burlington Magazine series (see fn. 3, above). Since then, these conclusions have met with opposition in the West as well as in India; from Buddhists as well as non-Buddhists (although none has stated a case for his opposition). It is only now that public opinion is ready to listen. A decisive moment of change coincided with the publication in Berlin of my 1979 address to the Fifth Conference of South Asian Archaeologists in Western Europe, where I read a paper offering firm proof that the Allahabad/Prayaga (formerly, 'Allahabad-Kosam') Pillar -- shown here in its present-day form at fig. 3) had been another pre-Asokan Bull-pillar like the one found at Rampurva (fig. 1)...
[T]he Prayaga/Allahabad pillar now turns out to be the first surviving (so-called) 'Asokan' pillar to have been inscribed; as we now know (see fn. 7, above), that it was already standing with a plain shaft when it was engraved. The 'Schism Edict' was in fact the first pillar inscription of any kind known to have been executed. Its style is not truly calligraphic, but the work of a relatively inexperienced engraver working from a scaffold or ladder...
In my final remarks, I should like to correct a misjudgment in my 1973 lectures (see above, fn. 3). Looking at the pillars with a less mature eye, I singled out, as high watermark of the series, the Sarnath Pillar (fig. 12). That choice I now recant...Brilliant though the execution of the Sarnath capital undoubtedly is, we fall back on seeing it as essentially heraldic. The sentiment it expresses is correspondingly public, lacking in 'soul', as a mystic might say. It cannot on that account be placed in the highest category of creative art, or on equal terms with such pre-Asokan masterpieces as the Ramapurva Bull (fig. 1) and the Sankisa Elephant (fig. 2)....
The style of the Sarnath inscription (fig. 13) recalls even more forcibly Princep's query about the Prayaga/Allahabad engraving: 'Why such carelessly cut letters on a shaft so regularly tapered and polished?' We now know that the Sarnath Pillar, in common with other 'Schism Pillars' already discussed, is among the first pillars inscribed by Asoka. Far from marking the culmination a a truly Asokan tradition (as I once supposed), it marked the beginning. Moreover, as now seems to be clear, it was inaugurated under the tutelage of craftsmen formerly employed in the Perso-Hellenistic tradition of the Achaemenid dynasty, who had apparently been brought to India by Asoka especially for that purpose.12 [I would like at this point to pay belated acknowledgement to my respected friend and colleague, Karl Khandalawala, which whom I have sometimes expressed differences of interpretation, in this case in opposing his view (which on hindsight appears to be entirely correct) that the Sarnath pillar reveals the influences of foreign (Achaemenid) influence. I hope this eminent art historian will now accept my personal apology and withdrawal. On this particular issue I am ready to admit that he was right, though I reserve my differences on other issues involving Asokan pillars. A further issue reflecting his correctness is embodied in the self-styled title Asoka used as the opening words of many of his inscriptions (Devanampiya Piyadassi), often translated as 'Beloved of the Gods." A century ago, this term was rightly recognised by the brilliant French Indologist Emile Senart, as borrowed from earlier Achaemenid inscriptions in Persia, yet since then ignored by all authorities writing on Asoka in English.]
-- The True Chronology of Aśokan Pillars, by John Irwin
Students of ancient India have been brought up in the belief that the nation's earliest sculptured monuments -- so-called 'Asokan' pillars -- have been inspired and erected by Asoka, first Buddhist ruler of a united India. This belief continues to be perpetuated up to the present day by leaders of the Archaeological Survey of India, fully aware that it was born and nurtured under the British raj over the last 150 years. From the very first moment of Independence, official opinion in India has clung tenaciously to the old beliefs, reluctant to think the problem afresh. The first Indian Director -- the late N.P. Chakravarty -- set the tone in 1947 by declaring that 'it is impossible to suppose that the pillars were raised by anyone except Asoka'.1 [N.P. Chakravarty, 'The Rock-edicts of Asoka and some connected problems', Ancient India, Bulletin of Archaeological Survey of India, no. 4, 1947-48, p. 25. The author added: 'There is no room to doubt that the pillars are Buddhistic and were therefore set up by Asoka himself and no other ruler' (ibid., p. 25).] Twenty years later, the same opinion was repeated by his successor A. Ghosh, who insisted that any other conclusion was 'unthinkable'2 [A. Ghosh, 'The Pillars of Asoka -- Their Purpose', East and West, Is. M.E.O., Rome, Vol. 17, 1967, pp. 273-75.] -- a statement apparently intended to silence those independent scholars who had vaguely mooted the possibility that some of the pillars might have been already standing without inscriptions before Asoka came to the throne. None, however, had offered, or even dreamt of the possibility that some pillars eventually bearing Asokan inscriptions had been standing with plain shafts before he ruled. This is surprising, for in the first Minor Rock Edict, at Rupnath and at Sahasram, attributed to the eleventh year of his reign, Asoka ordered that his edicts should be engraved on stone pillars if there were stone pillars (available). In the seventh Pillar Edict, issued in the 26th year, he makes two separate references to pillars: in line 23 saying that for the purpose of propagating his Law (dhamma), he has erected Pillars of Law (dhammathambani); and in line 32, that in order that his message should endure it should be engraved wherever pillars or stone slabs are available. Here it is important to recognize that two unrelated things are being said: in line 23 that for the purpose of spreading his message he has erected a certain type of pillar (without saying how many, or where, or when); and in line 32, that quite apart from those pillars that he himself has erected, he wants his edicts engraved on stone pillars already existing -- by implication, not erected by himself.
Soon after beginning research in the 1960s on the origin and meaning of the so-called Asokan pillars, I reached the conclusion that there was no rational basis to the claim that all of them were Asokan, or even Buddhist monuments, but much evidence to the contrary.3 [Those ideas were first publicly advanced in my series of Lowell Institute Lectures on 'The Foundations of Indian Art' delivered at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in 1973, and later summarized in four successive issues of the Burlington Magazine, London, vols. 115-118, 1973-76, under the title '"Asokan" Pillars: a reassessment of the evidence.'] Among the sculptures so mis-attributed was the great Bull capital (fig. 1) excavated at Rampurva in 1908, which had been characterised by Sir John Marshall, the Director of Archaeology at that time, as 'an inferior piece of sculpture', and as 'wholly alien to the spirit of Indian art'.4 [Sir John Marshall and Alfred Foucher, The Monuments of Sanchi, vol. I, Calcutta, 1939, pp. 89-90; and J.H. Marshall, 'Archaeological Exploration in India 1907-08', Journal of Royal Asiatic Society, London, 1908, esp. p. 1088.]
A chance to make my indignation felt came in 1947-48 when, in a junior role as organising secretary of the British Royal Academy's great Winter Exhibition of The Art of India and Pakistan (the first major exhibition of Indian art ever held, intended in this case to celebrated the handing over of power), I was able to use what influence I could to ensure that the Bull capital was included among loans from India.
Moreover, I was even able to ensure that it had pride of place at the entrance to the exhibition. A pre-Asokan attribution was rejected for the catalogue;5 [The Art of India and Pakistan (edited by Leigh Ashton), being the Commemorative Catalogue of that Exhibition, compiled jointly by K. de B. Codrington, Basil Gray and John Irwin, London, 1950.] but it gave me pleasure when, on the return of the sculpture to India, it was singled out by the new Government for an honoured place in the portico of the President's Palace at Delhi, where it remains up to the present day -- still displayed as an 'Asokan capital'!
A second masterpiece belonging to the same art historical category, but less honoured in position, is the Sankisa Elephant (fig. 2) -- now imprisoned behind iron bars at its original site of excavation in 1862,6 [The original excavation report appears in Alexander Cunningham's article on 'Sankisa', Archaeological Survey Reports for the period 1862-65 (Calcutta 1871), vol. I, pp. xl-xli.] where its quality eludes the camera (hence my dependence at fig. 2 on a faded photography taken at the time of discovery, damaged and incomplete).
Both the Rampurva Bull and the Sankisa Elephant are, in my opinion, masterpieces of underestimated antiquity and importance. Both sculptures are unquestionably of pre-Asokan and even pre-Buddhist origin, as I suggested a decade ago in my Burlington Magazine series (see fn. 3, above). Since then, these conclusions have met with opposition in the West as well as in India; from Buddhists as well as non-Buddhists (although none has stated a case for his opposition). It is only now that public opinion is ready to listen. A decisive moment of change coincided with the publication in Berlin of my 1979 address to the Fifth Conference of South Asian Archaeologists in Western Europe, where I read a paper offering firm proof that the Allahabad/Prayaga (formerly, 'Allahabad-Kosam') Pillar -- shown here in its present-day form at fig. 3) had been another pre-Asokan Bull-pillar like the one found at Rampurva (fig. 1)7. [John Irwin, 'The Prayaga Bull pillar: another pre-Asokan monument?' included in Proceedings of the Fifth Conference of South Asian Archaeologists in Western Europe under the title South Asian Archaeology 1979, edited by H. Hartel, Dietrich Reimer, Berlin, 1981, Part II, pp. 313-340.] From this moment, letters from scholars in other parts of the world identifying themselves with conclusions arising from this thesis began coming in, and I then felt that the battle for recognition of pre-Asokan pillars would be won. This, I believe, will be reinforced when the second part of my Prayaga-Pillar thesis appears later this year in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, London, under the title 'Origins of the Pre-Asokan Pillar-cult at Prayaga (Allahabad)'8, [John Irwin, 'Origins of the pre-Asokan Pillar cult at Prayaga (Allahabad)', since published in the third part of the 1983 volume of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, London.] to be followed by another entitled 'Buddhism and the Cosmic Pillar', now in press as an offering to Felicitation Volume in honour of Professor Giuseppe Tucci to be edited by Prof. Gherardo Gnoli for the Instituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, Rome, due to be presented in June, 1984).
Here, I am leaving all that aside to embark on a different course, which is to offer a definitive chronology of the true Asokan pillar, discounting those we now know were pre-Asokan. In other words our aim is to state clearly the order and dates of those pillars we know were both carved and erected by Asoka -- which are they? The latter question can be answered only after we are clear about which ones they are not. They do not include the Prayaga (Allahabad) pillar, since we now know that that monument had been standing with a plain shaft before Asoka instructed his mahamatras to engrave it with his first six Pillar Edicts which were issued in 243 B.C.9 [P.H.L. Eggermont, The Chronology of the reign of Asoka Moriya, Leiden (Brills), 1956, p. 67, and Supplement III.] However, in addition to the latter were engraved two earlier edicts: the first of these had been addressed by Asoka to the nearest dharma-mahamatras or 'ministers of morality' located at the regional capital, Kosambi, 30 km. to the west; the second was one of those 'Schism Edicts' first discovered and translated by Alexander Cunningham in 1870, and published in facsimile nine years later in the first edition of Inscriptions of Asoka.10 [Alexander Cunningham, Inscriptions of Asoka, Archaeological Survey of India, Corpus inscriptionum Indicarum, Calcutta, 1879 (The 'Schism Edict' is reproduced in facsimile at Plate XXII under the heading 'Kosambi Edict'.] It is now important to recognise that nobody before Cunningham had known about this inscription -- and the reason why. My inability to publish an actual photograph, depending instead on a reproduction of Cunningham's facsimile (fig. 4), has nothing to do with bureaucratic restrictions forbidding a camera in the Fort: the truth is that even if I had been allowed to take my camera, I could not have photographed the inscription satisfactorily, since it is too high and awkwardly placed on the shaft to be taken from the ground without special lenses. It is likewise important to know that the height above ground-level at which the inscription now appears is not the original height, which was lower on the shaft. The explanation is that when the shaft was re-erected in 1837 (after lying for a long period on the ground), the antiquarians of the Bengal Asiatic Society who had planned the restoration, being ignorant of the religious function of a cosmic pillar and thinking of it only as a 'victory column', went out of their say to re-install it on a specially-designed plinth that it was never meant to have. Up-to-date knowledge about the ritual function of a cosmic pillar tells us that in ancient times they were erected as if to appear rising nakedly out of the subterranean Waters, the Cosmic Ocean of the cosmogony. The presence of a plinth could only serve as evidence that the older meaning had been forgotten. The most important point that transpires at the present stage of our thesis is that the Prayaga/Allahabad pillar now turns out to be the first surviving (so-called) 'Asokan' pillar to have been inscribed; as we now know (see fn. 7, above), that it was already standing with a plain shaft when it was engraved. The 'Schism Edict' was in fact the first pillar inscription of any kind known to have been executed. Its style is not truly calligraphic, but the work of a relatively inexperienced engraver working from a scaffold or ladder.
At the time the 'Schism Edict' was engraved, the location of the Prayaga/Allahabad pillar was already recognised as 'the holiest spot in India', and was venerated by all religious sects, as fully discussed in my two Prayaga papers (see footnotes 7 and 8, above). This spot coincided with the Holy Conference of two sacred rivers, the Ganga and the Yamuna, which was in turn synonymous in cosmogonic myth with the Spot at which Heaven and Earth were separated 'in the beginning' (in illo tempore).
The facsimile of fig. 5 shows the opening section of the Six Pillar Edicts as they appear on the shaft of the Prayaga/Allahabad Pillar. As long ago as 1835, James Prinsep (known as the 'father of Indian archaeology') placed this facsimile side-by-side with facsimiles of the same section as it appears on the pillars at Lauriya-Araraj, Lauriya-Nandangarh, and Delhi/Topra, noting that the Allahabad version was crude in comparison with the fine cutting of the others. This prompted him to ask: 'Why did such carelessly cut letters feature on a shaft so regularly tapered and polished?' The question is as pertinent today as it was in 1835 when it was left unanswered. In the meantime, Prinsep's re-discovery of the script resulted in his sensational revelation that the author was none other than the great Asoka -- thus laying the first firm foundations for the study of ancient India. In the ensuing excitement, the question was put aside and forgotten, never to be raised again -- until now, when we are at last in a position to answer.
Until about a hundred years ago in India, Ashoka was merely one of the many kings mentioned in the Mauryan dynastic list included in the Puranas. Elsewhere in the Buddhist tradition he was referred to as a chakravartin/ cakkavatti, a universal monarch, but this tradition had become extinct in India after the decline of Buddhism. However, in 1837, James Prinsep deciphered an inscription written in the earliest Indian script since the Harappan, brahmi. There were many inscriptions in which the King referred to himself as Devanampiya Piyadassi (the beloved of the gods, Piyadassi). The name did not tally with any mentioned in the dynastic lists, although it was mentioned in the Buddhist chronicles of Sri Lanka. Slowly the clues were put together but the final confirmation came in 1915, with the discovery of yet another version of the edicts in which the King calls himself Devanampiya Ashoka.
-- The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to A.D. 1300, by Romila Thapar
In a study of the Mauryan period a sudden flood of source material becomes available. Whereas with earlier periods of Indian history there is a frantic search to glean evidence from sources often far removed and scattered, with the Mauryan period there is a comparative abundance of information, from sources either contemporary or written at a later date.
This is particularly the case with the reign of Aśoka Maurya, since, apart from the unintentional evidence of sources such as religious literature, coins, etc., the edicts of the king himself, inscribed on rocks and pillars throughout the country, are available. These consist of fourteen major rock edicts located at Kālsi, Mānsehrā, Shahbāzgarhi, Girnār, Sopārā, Yeṟṟaguḍi, Dhauli, and Jaugaḍa; and a number of minor rock edicts and inscriptions at Bairāṭ, Rūpanāth, Sahasrām, Brahmagiri, Gāvimath, Jaṭiṅga-Rāmeshwar, Maski, Pālkīguṇḍu, Rajūla-Maṇḍagiri, Siddāpura, Yeṟṟaguḍi, Gujarra and Jhansi. Seven pillar edicts exist at Allahabad, Delhi-Toprā, Delhi-Meerut, Lauriyā-Ararāja, Lauriyā-Nandangarh, and Rāmpūrvā. Other inscriptions have been found at the Barābar Caves (three inscriptions), Rummindei, Nigali-Sāgar, Allahabad, Sanchi, Sārnāth, and Bairāṭ. Recently a minor inscription in Greek and Aramaic was found at Kandahar.
The importance of these inscriptions could not be appreciated until it was ascertained to whom the title ‘Piyadassi’ referred, since the edicts generally do not mention the name of any king; an exception to this being the Maski edict, which was not discovered until very much later in 1915. The earliest publication on this subject was by Prinsep, who was responsible for deciphering the edicts. At first Prinsep identified Devanampiya Piyadassi with a king of Ceylon, owing to the references to Buddhism. There were of course certain weaknesses in this identification, as for instance the question of how a king of Ceylon could order the digging of wells and the construction of roads in India, which the author of the edicts claims to have done. Later in the same year, 1837, the Dīpavaṃsa and the Mahāvaṃsa, two of the early chronicles of the history of Ceylon, composed by Buddhist monks, were studied in Ceylon, and Prinsep was informed of the title of Piyadassi given to Aśoka in those works. This provided the link for the new and correct identification of Aśoka as the author of the edicts.
-- Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas, by Romila Thapar
Legends about past lives
Buddhist legends mention stories about Ashoka's past lives. According to a Mahavamsa story, Ashoka, Nigrodha and Devnampiya Tissa were brothers in a previous life. In that life, a pratyekabuddha was looking for honey to cure another, sick pratyekabuddha. A woman directed him to a honey shop owned by the three brothers. Ashoka generously donated honey to the pratyekabuddha, and wished to become the sovereign ruler of Jambudvipa for this act of merit. The woman wished to become his queen, and was reborn as Ashoka's wife Asandhamitta. Later Pali texts credit her with an additional act of merit: she gifted the pratyekabuddha a piece of cloth made by her. These texts include the Dasavatthuppakarana, the so-called Cambodian or Extended Mahavamsa (possibly from 9th–10th centuries), and the Trai Bhumi Katha (15th century).
According to an Ashokavadana story, Ashoka was born as Jaya in a prominent family of Rajagriha. When he was a little boy, he gave the Gautama Buddha dirt imagining it to be food. The Buddha approved of the donation, and Jaya declared that he would become a king by this act of merit. The text also state that Jaya's companion Vijaya was reborn as Ashoka's prime-minister Radhagupta. In the later life, the Buddhist monk Upagupta tells Ashoka that his rough skin was caused by the impure gift of dirt in the previous life. Some later texts repeat this story, without mentioning the negative implications of gifting dirt; these texts include Kumaralata's Kalpana-manditika, Aryashura's Jataka-mala, and the Maha-karma-vibhaga. The Chinese writer Pao Ch'eng's Shih chia ju lai ying hua lu asserts that an insignificant act like gifting dirt could not have been meritorious enough to cause Ashoka's future greatness. Instead, the text claims that in another past life, Ashoka commissioned a large number of Buddha statues as a king, and this act of merit caused him to become a great emperor in the next life.
The 14th century Pali-language fairy tale Dasavatthuppakarana (possibly from c. 14th century) combines the stories about the merchant's gift of honey, and the boy's gift of dirt. It narrates a slightly different version of the Mahavamsa story, stating that it took place before the birth of the Gautama Buddha. It then states that the merchant was reborn as the boy who gifted dirt to the Buddha; however, in this case, the Buddha his attendant to Ānanda to create plaster from the dirt, which is used repair cracks in the monastery walls....
Rediscovery
Ashoka had almost been forgotten, but in the 19th century James Prinsep contributed in the revelation of historical sources. After deciphering the Brahmi script, Prinsep had originally identified the "Priyadasi" of the inscriptions he found with the King of Ceylon Devanampiya Tissa. However, in 1837, George Turnour discovered an important Sri Lankan manuscript (Dipavamsa, or "Island Chronicle") associating Piyadasi with Ashoka:"Two hundred and eighteen years after the beatitude of the Buddha, was the inauguration of Piyadassi, .... who, the grandson of Chandragupta, and the son of Bindusara, was at the time Governor of Ujjayani."
— Dipavamsa.[34]
-- Ashoka, by Wikipedia
[I would like at this point to pay belated acknowledgement to my respected friend and colleague, Karl Khandalawala, which whom I have sometimes expressed differences of interpretation, in this case in opposing his view (which on hindsight appears to be entirely correct) that the Sarnath pillar reveals the influences of foreign (Achaemenid) influence. I hope this eminent art historian will now accept my personal apology and withdrawal. On this particular issue I am ready to admit that he was right, though I reserve my differences on other issues involving Asokan pillars. A further issue reflecting his correctness is embodied in the self-styled title Asoka used as the opening words of many of his inscriptions (Devanampiya Piyadassi), often translated as 'Beloved of the Gods." A century ago, this term was rightly recognised by the brilliant French Indologist Emile Senart, as borrowed from earlier Achaemenid inscriptions in Persia, yet since then ignored by all authorities writing on Asoka in English.]
-- The True Chronology of Aśokan Pillars, by John Irwin
The answer presents itself in the following way. On every pillar now known with certainty to have been both inscribed and erected by Asoka, the lettering is neat and well-spaced: the evidence presents itself most clearly on the two pillars raised to commemorate Asoka's tour of the Buddhist Holy Spots in 257 B.C. (figs. 6a & b). In each case, the inscription actually says that Asoka was both the inscriber and the erector. How, then, do we explain the conspicuous difference between the lettering of these two inscriptions, on the one hand, and the crudeness at Prayaga/Allahabad, on the other?
Before trying to answer, it must first be considered exactly how stone-engravers in Asoka's time set about their task. We find that there were two alternative methods, according to whether a shaft was lying horizontally on the ground before erection, or was already standing as described in line 32 of the Seventh Pillar Edict.11 [E. Hultzsch, Insriptions of Asoka, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Oxford, 1925, p. 137.] In the former case, the answer can be supplied by anybody keeping their eyes open at building sites in India up to the present day. I have the record of many photographs. At fig. 7, for instance, we see a master-craftsman detailing a column to be built into a new Jain temple near Ahmedabad, in Gujarat, where it was taken in 1979, without the craftsman's knowledge, in order to illustrate his pose. Squatting is natural to the Indian physique and living habits. By sitting astride a column and looking down at his work, the craftsman achieves maximum control of the chisel. This is the position traditionally employed when the lines of an inscription are short; but if the text to be copied is a long one, like the Six Pillar Edicts, another position has to be sought, because after cutting the first few words, the whole column would have to be rolled over, in order to bring a fresh surface to the top; and at the end of each line, it would have to be rolled back to the starting-point for the beginning of the next line. For a long text, this is a very unsatisfactory method, since it involves great labour, with at least four rollings for each line, and forty or more for the usual ten lines -- no mean task for an Asokan column weighing some thirty tons!
A simpler method therefore becomes desirable, in order to reduce the need for frequent and laborious rolling. This can be achieved only by keeping the lines to be copied as short as possible, to facilitate progress from the end of one line to the next without any rolling at all. This is exactly what we find in the case of every pillar known to have been both inscribed and erected with the famous Six Pillar Edicts. The method characteristically adopted was to arrange the layout of the text on what printers in their jargon call the 'vertical box' system. In this way, each edict was arranged to face one of the four directions, which meant that no shaft would need to be rolled on the ground more than four times. (An example of this layout is indicated in the sketch at fig. 8).
Switching your mind next from a shaft lying on the ground before erection, to one already standing before it was engraved, the solution would then be the opposite. This is exactly what happened when the Prayaga/Allahabad Pillar was inscribed: there is every indication that the stonemason had been working from the shaky foundation of some kind of ladder or scaffold, the lines of the text being long, and almost completely circulating the shaft, thus minimizing the number of changes in level.
There is no need to spend more time on this part of my thesis, since it is fully discussed and illustrated in my 1979 paper (see above, fn. 7). There is, however, one exception to prove the rule, and here I allude to the Delhi-Topra inscription (figs. 9 and 10). In that case, the pillar bears -- in addition to the famous Six Edicts -- an even more famous Seventh, sometimes called 'Asoka's Last Testament,' because it was issued after the first Six, in the last years of Asoka's long reign.
Whereas the first Six had been engraved when the shaft was lying on the ground before erection, the Seventh was later added to the shaft when already standing. In this case only, the two methods were separately employed (fig. 9). Having started the Seventh Edict on the 'vertical box' principle described above, and illustrated here at figs. 8 and 10, a sudden change follows at line 31 where his predecessor had left off, already starting to lose control of level and uniformity of lettering. Breaking off at that point (fig. 10), he continues the Seventh Edict by the second method, carrying the remainder of the text right round the shaft (fig. 11).
In my final remarks, I should like to correct a misjudgment in my 1973 lectures (see above, fn. 3). Looking at the pillars with a less mature eye, I singled out, as high watermark of the series, the Sarnath Pillar (fig. 12). That choice I now recant. As I then put it, the great appeal of the Sarnath Pillar is a timeless quality, which I identified as 'worldly authority idealised.' Today, I see no reason to revise that description, since it fits with what we know of Asoka's political idealism. Yet, the world has since moved on, and many of us have no become innately suspicious of 'worldly authority idealised,' and see it as a shallow compliment. Brilliant though the execution of the Sarnath capital undoubtedly is, we fall back on seeing it as essentially heraldic. The sentiment it expresses is correspondingly public, lacking in 'soul', as a mystic might say. It cannot on that account be placed in the highest category of creative art, or on equal terms with such pre-Asokan masterpieces as the Ramapurva Bull (fig. 1) and the Sankisa Elephant (fig. 2).
Nobody is likely to doubt that the Sarnath capital is Asokan. In our present context, the most significant fact to be noted is that it is another of the 'Schism Pillars', as its inscription reveals (fig. 13). Therefore, we now know that it was carved before any lion-pillar bearing the Six Pillar Edicts, which were issued in 243 B.C.; it was inscribed at a time when experience in stone-engraving was still minimal in India.
The style of the Sarnath inscription (fig. 13) recalls even more forcibly Princep's query about the Prayaga/Allahabad engraving: 'Why such carelessly cut letters on a shaft so regularly tapered and polished?' We now know that the Sarnath Pillar, in common with other 'Schism Pillars' already discussed, is among the first pillars inscribed by Asoka. Far from marking the culmination a a truly Asokan tradition (as I once supposed), it marked the beginning. Moreover, as now seems to be clear, it was inaugurated under the tutelage of craftsmen formerly employed in the Perso-Hellenistic tradition of the Achaemenid dynasty, who had apparently been brought to India by Asoka especially for that purpose.12 [I would like at this point to pay belated acknowledgement to my respected friend and colleague, Karl Khandalawala, which whom I have sometimes expressed differences of interpretation, in this case in opposing his view (which on hindsight appears to be entirely correct) that the Sarnath pillar reveals the influences of foreign (Achaemenid) influence. I hope this eminent art historian will now accept my personal apology and withdrawal. On this particular issue I am ready to admit that he was right, though I reserve my differences on other issues involving Asokan pillars. A further issue reflecting his correctness is embodied in the self-styled title Asoka used as the opening words of many of his inscriptions (Devanampiya Piyadassi), often translated as 'Beloved of the Gods." A century ago, this term was rightly recognised by the brilliant French Indologist Emile Senart, as borrowed from earlier Achaemenid inscriptions in Persia, yet since then ignored by all authorities writing on Asoka in English.] In patronising the first pillar to incorporate his own conception of kingship, Asoka had broken away from the older, Indian conceptions expressed in pre-Asokan capitals. It might even be supposed that he was impatient of the earlier magico-religious associations of the brahmanical pillar-cult based on worship of Indra as 'king of the gods'. The latter had come into being when India was basically tribal or semi-tribal. Now the earlier cult was being challenged by concepts of imperial sovereignty Asoka had taken from the Achaemenid example. Hence, the moustachioed lions of the Sarnath capital (fig. 12) belong to a totally different tradition of animal sculpture, not only aesthetically, but also in terms of anatomical observation (fig. 14). The Sarnath Lions cannot be compared in any sense of style with the Rampurva Bull or the Sankisa Elephant (figs. 1 and 2) as repositories of the true Indian genius of animal art. We cannot escape the observation that the Sarnath Lions were first in the series of Lion capitals Asoka was subsequently to commission, inscribe, and erect, terminating with the capital excavated close to the site of the famous Bull (fig. 1) at Rampurva, the Lion now being preserved in Calcutta Museum (fig. 15).
When all has been said about the Sarnath monument, I do not believe that its famous lion capital was the first lion sculpture carved on Indian soil. In contradiction with other scholars, I have always felt that credit for that achievement should go to carvers of the Vaisali lion-pillar, as argued in part I of my Burlington series in 1973 (see fn. 3, above). (I bypass here what seems to me to be the specious case argued as recently as 1980 -- ostensibly by an officer signing himself as a member of the Archaeological Survey of India.13 [Kalyan Priya Gupta, 'New evidence from Kolhua (Vaisali) Pillar', in Puratattva, Bulletin of the Archaeological Society, New Delhi, 1979-80, pp. 145-47, with two pages of plates. Although he signs himself as an officer of the Archaeological Survey, the author's case is oddly compounded with a mixture of unacknowledged and distorted plagiarisms, inaccuracies, and absurdities (including the transposition of Prinsep -- spelt 'Princep' -- into the 18th century, long before he was born) and interspersed with amateurish archaeological sketches. I cannot afford space in this context to take it seriously, knowing that his 'new evidence' could not carry weight even with a first-year archaeological student.]) Asoka, after packing off to their Iranian homeland in 258 B.C. the Perso-Hellenistic tutors who had guided the creation of the Sarnath capital, next commissioned another lion capital in what was to mark the beginning of a new Indian tradition. It was also another 'Schism Pillar,' this time erected at Sanchi (fig. 16), carved in a style very close to the Sarnath capital and clearly modelled on the latter, perhaps within a few months or a year. Yet, it is not improbable that Perso-Hellenistic artists would have regarded as unintelligible some features of the Sanchi abacus with its Indianised tosu-eating geese (hamsas) previously familiar on pre-Asokan capitals. In fact, it was only in India, and never in Persia, that geese were used to represent the Cosmic Waters which, as we learn from other cosmogonic traditions (e.g. as recorded in the Book of Genesis, I, 6-7) divided the Waters above the firmament from those below.
It is no surprise to us that the Sanchi monument was yet another 'Schism Pillar', inscribed when it was already standing, and before the existence of any of Asoka's Six-Edict Pillars.14 [It is very much to the credit of H. Cousens, as an officer in the Archaeological Survey of Western India, that he commented in 1900: 'I think the (Sanchi) Pillar must have been engraved long after it was set up, the pillar simply offering a suitable surface for it. The lines are slanting and it is not by any means neatly engraved as it would have been in connection with the setting up of the pillar' (see fig. 17). H. Cousens, Progress Report of the Archaeological Survey of Western India, Government of Bombay, for the year ending June, 1900, p. 4. The only point on which disagreement might now be expressed is in his interposition of the word 'long,' since the interval is not likely to have been more than a few years (if as much).]
Figures
Fig. 1. Rampurva Bull capital, Calcutta Museum.
Fig. 2. Sankisa Elephant capital (after an old photograph taken in the 1860's, now in the India Office Library, London)
Fig. 3. The Allahabad/Prayaga pillar, as seen today in Allahabad Fort (Photo by Elinor Gadon)
Fig. 4. The 'Schism Edict' on the Allahabad shaft, as published by A. Cunningham in Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. I, at Plate XXII after its first discovery in 1879.
Fig. 5. Facsimile of opening of Asoka's First Six Pillar Edicts (interlineated with a later -- medieval -- inscription), Allahabad (after E. Hultzsch, 1925).
Fig. 6a. Asoka's pillar inscriptions at Rummindei, after Klaus Ludwig Janert, Abstande und Schlussvokalverzeichnungen in Asoka-Inscriften, Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handscriften in Deutschland, Supplementband 10, Wiesbaden, 1972.
Fig. 6b. Asoka's pillar inscriptions at Nigali Sagar, after Klaus Ludwig Janert, Abstande und Schlussvokalverzeichnungen in Asoka-Inscriften, Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handscriften in Deutschland, Supplementband 10, Wiesbaden, 1972.
Fig. 7. A master mason detailing a column before being built into a new Jain temple north of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Taken by the author, without the attention of the mason, in 1979.
Fig. 8. Copy of an Edict as it appears on shaft of Lauriya-Araraj pillar shaft. (Drawn by Margaret Hall under author's direction)
Fig. 9. Edict nos. 6 and 7, photographed exactly as seen today on Delhi Topra pillar. (Photo by the author, 1979).
Fig. 10. Section of inscription on Delhi-Topra pillar shaft, showing exactly where Edict no. 6 ends and no. 7 continues at a later date, in the hands of another stonemason. After Janert.
Fig. 11. The finish of Edict no. 7 on the Delhi-Topra shaft, showing how it continues right round the column. After Janert.
Fig. 12. The Sarnath Lion capital (now in the site museum, Sarnath). Author's photograph.
Fig. 13. The Schism Edict, found as the only inscription on the Sarnath pillar when the stump of the shaft was excavated in 1905.
Fig. 14. Drawing of left forelimb of lion on Sarnath capital, contrasted with a real-life anatomical study, by Margaret Hall.
Fig. 15. The Lion capital of an Asokan pillar excavated at Rampurva, Bihar. Calcutta Museum, photographed by the author.
Fig. 16. Sanchi Lion capital, before restoration; now in the site museum, Sanchi.
Fig. 17. The 'Schism Edict', found as the only inscription on the Sanchi pillar when excavated in 1913.