143-493: Lion Capital may refer to: Architecture [ edit ] The Lion Capital of Ashoka , a sculpture used as the national emblem of India Mathura lion capital , an Indo-Scythian sandstone capital from Mathura in India Companies [ edit ] Lion Capital LLP , a British private equity firm formerly affiliated with Hicks Muse Tate & Furst Lion Capital,
286-668: A UNESCO effort tasked to conserve the site at Mohenjo-daro. Other international efforts at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa have included the German Aachen Research Project Mohenjo-daro , the Italian Mission to Mohenjo-daro , and the US Harappa Archaeological Research Project (HARP) founded by George F. Dales . Following a chance flash flood which exposed a portion of an archaeological site at
429-511: A column erected by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka in Sarnath , India, c. 250 BCE . Its crowning features are four life-sized lions set back to back on a drum-shaped abacus . The side of the abacus is adorned with wheels in relief , and interspersing them, four animals, a lion, an elephant, a bull, and a galloping horse follow each other from right to left. A bell-shaped lotus forms
572-643: A "relatively uniform" material culture in terms of pottery styles, ornaments, and stamp seals with Indus script , leading into the transition to the Mature Harappan phase. According to Giosan et al. (2012), the slow southward migration of the monsoons across Asia initially allowed the Indus Valley villages to develop by taming the floods of the Indus and its tributaries. Flood-supported farming led to large agricultural surpluses, which in turn supported
715-474: A contemporary 3rd century BCE myth. A water spout arose from the heart of this lake. After surfacing and splitting into four streams it emanated from the mouths of the same four animals sitting on the lake's shore and flowed onto the four corners of the earth, like the message of the Buddha or of Ashoka himself. The pillar, thus, has been likened both to the water spout rising to meet the lake-like abacus and also
858-465: A continuity in cultural development but a change in population. According to Lukacs and Hemphill, while there is a strong continuity between the neolithic and chalcolithic (Copper Age) cultures of Mehrgarh, dental evidence shows that the chalcolithic population did not descend from the neolithic population of Mehrgarh, which "suggests moderate levels of gene flow." Mascarenhas et al. (2015) note that "new, possibly West Asian, body types are reported from
1001-472: A father to his daughter and The Discovery of India . The major contemporary philosopher of the religions of India, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan , also advised Nehru in the choice. The state emblem of the Dominion of India was accepted by the cabinet on 29 December 1947, with the resolution of a national motto set aside for a future date. Nehru also explicitly displaced the spinning wheel, the charkha , at
1144-577: A feral population thereafter and eventually became wild. This is suggested to have resulted from the contact of the South Asian dynasties with the Achaemenid and Seleucid empires when hunting lions became a sign of royal prowess. The Achaemenids had inherited the pastime from western Asia. There is evidence from Syria of lion hunts and lion menageries with caged lions in the early fourth-millennium BCE. When emperor Ashoka converted to Buddhism in
1287-407: A fine abrasive or even patiently with wood. According to art historian Gail Maxwell, the sandstone received its shine through the application of heat which gives a lasting glass-like finish to the stone. The pillar which bore the capital aloft "remains broken in several pieces at the site and is now protected by a glass enclosure that separates the pillar from visitors." Before it fell, it is thought
1430-402: A former affiliate of Apollo Global Management Other [ edit ] Lion Capital Series of banknotes were currency notes issued after Indian independence Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Lion Capital . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to
1573-524: A highly uniform and well-planned grid pattern, suggesting they were planned by a central authority; extraordinary uniformity of Harappan artefacts as evident in pottery, seals, weights and bricks; presence of public facilities and monumental architecture; heterogeneity in the mortuary symbolism and in grave goods (items included in burials). These are some major theories: Harappans evolved some new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze , lead, and tin . A touchstone bearing gold streaks
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#17327727634691716-571: A hundred excavated, there are five major urban centres: Mohenjo-daro in the lower Indus Valley (declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980 as " Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro "), Harappa in the western Punjab region , Ganeriwala in the Cholistan Desert , Dholavira in western Gujarat (declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021 as " Dholavira: A Harappan City "), and Rakhigarhi in Haryana . The Harappan language
1859-547: A joint discussion. By 1924, Marshall had become convinced of the significance of the finds, and on 24 September 1924, made a tentative but conspicuous public intimation in the Illustrated London News : "Not often has it been given to archaeologists, as it was given to Schliemann at Tiryns and Mycenae , or to Stein in the deserts of Turkestan , to light upon the remains of a long forgotten civilisation. It looks, however, at this moment, as if we were on
2002-533: A lion, an elephant, a bull, and a horse; the first three are shown at walking pace but the horse is at full gallop. The capital which was carved from a single block of marble is broken across the necking just above the bell. The capital has a polished finish. Although most sandstone is difficult to polish without dislodging the grains on the surface, according to a 2020 study by Frederick Asher, very fine-grained sandstone found, e.g. in Chunar , can be polished with
2145-550: A long history of being employed as a symbol of the Achaemenian royalty. As the monarch of a vast realm, but also a Buddhist, he sought new symbols to project his power. Thus whereas the Ashokan lions seemed remarkably similar to the conventionalized Persian, the idea of using a pair of addorsed lions to project both spiritual and temporal power was new. Christopher Ernest Tadgell considers it unlikely that Ashoka's capital
2288-621: A new viceroy of India, Lord Curzon , pushed through the Ancient Monuments Preservation Act 1904 , and appointed John Marshall to lead the ASI. Several years later, Hiranand Sastri , who had been assigned by Marshall to survey Harappa, reported it to be of non-Buddhist origin, and by implication more ancient. Expropriating Harappa for the ASI under the Act, Marshall directed ASI archaeologist Daya Ram Sahni to excavate
2431-571: A period when Islam was forcibly imposed on the native Hindu population. For British colonial historians, this depiction of Islamic despots served to illustrate the beneficence of British rule. Some postcolonial nationalist historians have used the presumed historical oppression of Hindus by Muslims to argue for a more Hindu, rather than secular, India. Buddhism has only a small place within these larger narratives of despotism, destruction, and desecration." According to historian Richard Eaton, instead of arbitrary attacks on Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples,
2574-789: A pillar as a symbol for axis mundi , the axis around which the earth revolves. Irwin acknowledged the existence of numerous precedents of pillars with animal effigies in the ancient world, from the djed -pillars of Pre-dynastic Egypt , to the Sphinx of the Naxians , but argued that Greek examples were in essence classical load-bearing pillars with an animal on top, whereas the Indian pillars of Ashoka were more slender, and closer to monumental stone-versions of dhvajas , portable wooden standards known in India from undetermined antiquity. To J. C. Harle,
2717-455: A place. More than two centuries before Xuanzang's visit, at the very beginning of the fifth century another Chinese visitor, Faxian , had recorded a short description of Sarnath. Faxian had also mentioned some towers, one at the site where the Buddha met the five disciples and another "60 paces north" where he gave the first sermon, the account being more about relating the traditional stories than giving particulars of geography. Neither account
2860-599: A site whose entire upper layer had been stripped in the interim. Although his original goal of demonstrating Harappa to be a lost Buddhist city mentioned in the seventh century CE travels of the Chinese visitor, Xuanzang , proved elusive, Cunningham did publish his findings in 1875. For the first time, he interpreted a Harappan stamp seal , with its unknown script, which he concluded to be of an origin foreign to India. Archaeological work in Harappa thereafter lagged until
3003-536: A state of flux. The lion capital is rich in symbolism, both Buddhist and secular. In July 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru , the interim prime minister of India, proposed in the Constituent Assembly of India that the wheel on the abacus be the model for the wheel in the centre of the Dominion of India's new national flag, and the capital itself without the lotus the model for the state emblem . The proposal
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#17327727634693146-529: A storehouse at Sarnath for the artefacts found earlier and paved the road to Sarnath. He then convinced Sir John Marshall , the director-general of the ASI , to be allowed to excavate Sarnath in the winter of 1904–05. John Marshall resolved to put in place plans for a museum to keep the excavated artefacts close to the site. Oertel began his excavations in the vicinity of the Jagat Singh stupa , which lies to
3289-570: A tradition in archaeology, the civilisation is sometimes referred to as the Harappan, after its type site , Harappa , the first site to be excavated in the 1920s; this is notably true of usage employed by the Archaeological Survey of India after India's independence in 1947. The term "Ghaggar-Hakra" figures prominently in modern labels applied to the Indus civilisation on account of a good number of sites having been found along
3432-514: Is 2.1 metres (7 ft) tall in total. Its lowest portion is an inverted lotus petal bell which is 61 centimetres (2 ft) high, carved in the Persepolitan style, and decorated with 16 petals. The bell has been interpreted to be a stylized lotus, a common motif. Above the bell is a circular abacus , or a drum-shaped slab, of diameter 86 centimetres (34 in) and height 34 centimetres ( 13 + 1 ⁄ 2 in). Set addorsed , on
3575-556: Is a fitting one in this context as Ypres ("leper" in Flemish) is also known as a 'city of peace'." Various reconstructions of the Sarnath pillar and its capital have been proposed. The topmost wheel can rest on the backs of the four lions, or it can be positioned higher (the exact length of the shaft supporting the wheel being unknown). The full pillar is generally reconstructed straightforwardly from its archaeological remains, with
3718-490: Is no conclusive evidence of palaces or temples. Some structures are thought to have been granaries. Found at one city is an enormous well-built bath (the " Great Bath "), which may have been a public bath. Although the citadels were walled, it is far from clear that these structures were defensive. Most city dwellers appear to have been traders or artisans, who lived with others pursuing the same occupation in well-defined neighbourhoods. Materials from distant regions were used in
3861-486: Is no cult allegiance here in the symbolism of the Mahachakra [‘great wheel’] and its accessories like the four lions . . . here one is face to face with an acclamation to the single unmanifested and undifferentiated divine phenomenon.'" The significance and meaning of the lotus bell, the lowest member of the capital, has also been discussed in the literature. Agrawala explained in 1964: "The first decorative element of
4004-507: Is not directly attested, and its affiliations are uncertain, as the Indus script has remained undeciphered. A relationship with the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language family is favoured by a section of scholars. The Indus civilisation is named after the Indus river system in whose alluvial plains the early sites of the civilisation were identified and excavated. Following
4147-462: Is shown by their dockyards, granaries , warehouses, brick platforms, and protective walls. The massive walls of Indus cities most likely protected the Harappans from floods and may have dissuaded military conflicts. The purpose of the citadel remains debated. In sharp contrast to this civilisation's contemporaries, Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt , no large monumental structures were built. There
4290-425: Is sometimes called Mature Harappan to distinguish it from the earlier cultures. The cities of the ancient Indus were noted for their urban planning , baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-residential buildings, and techniques of handicraft and metallurgy . Mohenjo-daro and Harappa very likely grew to contain between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals, and
4433-599: The Ghaggar-Hakra River in northwest India and eastern Pakistan. The terms "Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation" and "Sindhu-Saraswati Civilisation" have also been employed in the literature by supporters of Indigenous Aryanism , after a posited identification of the Ghaggar-Hakra with the river Sarasvati described in the early chapters of the Rigveda , a collection of hymns in archaic Sanskrit composed in
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4576-638: The axis mundi , the world's axis. The four lions have also been thought to be the cardinal directions as if roaring the Buddha's message to the remotest parts. A later Buddhist text, the Maha-Sihanada Sutta ( Great Discourse on the Lions' Roar ), pointedly links the wheel and lion with its refrain, "[the Buddha] roars his lion’s roar in the assemblies, and sets rolling the Wheel of Dharma [wheel of
4719-491: The water buffalo . Early Harappan communities turned to large urban centres by 2600 BCE, from where the mature Harappan phase started. The latest research shows that Indus Valley people migrated from villages to cities. The final stages of the Early Harappan period are characterised by the building of large walled settlements, the expansion of trade networks, and the increasing integration of regional communities into
4862-566: The ASI attempted to "Indianise" archaeological work in keeping with the new nation's goals of national unity and historical continuity, in Pakistan the national imperative was the promotion of Islamic heritage, and consequently archaeological work on early sites was left to foreign archaeologists. After the partition, Mortimer Wheeler, the Director of ASI from 1944, oversaw the establishment of archaeological institutions in Pakistan, later joining
5005-469: The Asiatic lion primarily to be a West Asiatic animal, and elephants and bulls to be the more characteristic beasts of India. "There is, then, the evidence here," he concludes, "for detailing influenced by Greek art, often through Persian models, in the architecture of the third to second centuries BCE. Sir John Marshall, after drawing attention to such foreign motifs at Sanchi as the ‘Assyrian tree of life,
5148-592: The Asokan pillar-capital. This argument is too weak to convince anybody but the already converted." According to Irwin, "V. S. Agrawala followed Coomaraswamy in refusing to accept the 'Asokan bell' as anything but Indian, but he presented his case as an article of faith, making no attempt to prove it. He saw the bell as an inverted lotus flower 'overflowing' the form of a symbolic vase-of-plenty ( purna-ghata )." Writing in 1911—following two decades of investigations—the historian Vincent Smith concluded that all
5291-619: The Company any historical artifacts acquired during his travels. Masson, who had versed himself in the classics , especially in the military campaigns of Alexander the Great , chose for his wanderings some of the same towns that had featured in Alexander's campaigns, and whose archaeological sites had been noted by the campaign's chroniclers. Masson's major archaeological discovery in the Punjab
5434-553: The Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1931–1935, the stone shaft was not found but, "its thickness can be estimated from the mortice hole, 20 centimetres (8 in) in diameter, drilled into the stone between the lions' heads." Further, according to Sahni, "Of the wheel itself, four small fragments were found. The ends of thirteen spokes remain on these pieces. Their total number
5577-991: The Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan phases. Mehrgarh is a Neolithic (7000 BCE to c. 2500 BCE ) mountain site in the Balochistan province of Pakistan , which gave new insights on the emergence of the Indus Valley Civilisation. Mehrgarh is one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia . Mehrgarh was influenced by the Near Eastern Neolithic, with similarities between "domesticated wheat varieties, early phases of farming, pottery, other archaeological artefacts, some domesticated plants and herd animals." Jean-Francois Jarrige argues for an independent origin of Mehrgarh. Jarrige notes "the assumption that farming economy
5720-448: The Ghaggar-Hakra system might yield more sites than the Indus river basin. According to archaeologist Ratnagar, many Ghaggar-Hakra sites in India and Indus Valley sites in Pakistan are actually those of local cultures; some sites display contact with Harappan civilisation, but only a few are fully developed Harappan ones. As of 1977, about 90% of the Indus script seals and inscribed objects discovered were found at sites in Pakistan along
5863-558: The Harappan civilisation lasted from c. 2600 –1900 BCE. With the inclusion of the predecessor and successor cultures – Early Harappan and Late Harappan, respectively – the entire Indus Valley Civilisation may be taken to have lasted from the 33rd to the 14th centuries BCE. It is part of the Indus Valley Tradition, which also includes the pre-Harappan occupation of Mehrgarh, the earliest farming site of
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6006-571: The Indus Civilization , London: Arthur Probsthain, 1931. The first modern accounts of the ruins of the Indus civilisation are those of Charles Masson , a deserter from the East India Company 's army. In 1829, Masson traveled through the princely state of Punjab, gathering useful intelligence for the Company in return for a promise of clemency. An aspect of this arrangement was the additional requirement to hand over to
6149-616: The Indus River Valley site of Mehrgarh and is dated to 7,000 YBP ." The Early Harappan Ravi Phase, named after the nearby Ravi River , lasted from c. 3300 BCE until 2800 BCE. It started when farmers from the mountains gradually moved between their mountain homes and the lowland river valleys, and is related to the Hakra Phase , identified in the Ghaggar-Hakra River Valley to
6292-791: The Indus Valley Civilisation, in the Gomal River valley in northwestern Pakistan, at Manda, Jammu on the Beas River near Jammu , and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon River , only 28 km (17 mi) from Delhi. The southernmost site of the Indus Valley Civilisation is Daimabad in Maharashtra . Indus Valley sites have been found most often on rivers, but also on the ancient seacoast, for example, Balakot ( Kot Bala ), and on islands, for example, Dholavira . "Three other scholars whose names I cannot pass over in silence, are
6435-525: The Indus Valley. Several periodisations are employed for the IVC. The most commonly used classifies the Indus Valley Civilisation into Early, Mature and Late Harappan Phase. An alternative approach by Shaffer divides the broader Indus Valley Tradition into four eras, the pre-Harappan "Early Food Producing Era", and the Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation eras, which correspond roughly with
6578-573: The Indus river, while other sites accounts only for the remaining 10%. By 2002, over 1,000 Mature Harappan cities and settlements had been reported, of which just under a hundred had been excavated, mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra rivers and their tributaries; however, there are only five major urban sites: Harappa , Mohenjo-daro , Dholavira , Ganeriwala and Rakhigarhi . As of 2008, about 616 sites have been reported in India, whereas 406 sites have been reported in Pakistan. Unlike India, in which after 1947,
6721-607: The Kot Diji related material". He sees these areas as "catalytic in producing the fusion from Hakra, Kot Dijian and Amri-Nal cultural elements that resulted in the gestalt we recognize as Early Harappan (Early Indus)." By 2600 BCE, the Early Harappan communities turned into large urban centres. Such urban centres include Harappa , Ganeriwala , Mohenjo-daro in modern-day Pakistan, and Dholavira , Kalibangan , Rakhigarhi , Rupar , and Lothal in modern-day India. In total, more than 1,000 settlements have been found, mainly in
6864-620: The Lion Capital can by no means be interpreted as Indo-Persepolitan Bell. It is in every respect the Purna-ghata motif of ancient Indian art and religion, overflowing with luxuriant lotus petals." Writing in 1975, the Indologist John Irwin asked, "Did the carvers of 'Aśokan' pillars derive the idea of their bell from Persepolis, or not?" Irwin added, "So far, only one scholar, the late A. K. Coomaraswamy, has argued in
7007-775: The Mauryan period of artwork that contrasted remarkably with local styles, and stating the likelihood of traditions of producing "naturalistic forms" being preserved in Iranian stonemasons for the critical decades between the fall of Persepolis and the appearance of Mauryan columns, emphasises the entrepreneurial spirit of Ashoka who, "did not shrink from doing what only the most illustrious rulers outside India had done before him: he had pillars produced of unbelievable dimensions, cut in one piece and transported to predefined places—pillars crowned with lions and bulls of an unprecedented naturalistic beauty." Frederick Asher, summarizing, credits
7150-597: The National Flag of India shall be a horizontal tricolour of deep saffron (kesari), white and dark green in equal proportion. In the centre of the white band, there shall be a Wheel in navy blue to represent the Charkha. The design of the Wheel shall be that of the Wheel (Chakra) which appears on the abacus of the Sarnath Lion Capital of Asoka. The diameter of the Wheel shall approximate to the width of
7293-441: The Sarnath lions and their kin owe all to the arts of others rather than native observation." Sounding a similar theme as Asher, he concludes that it was "all a matter of assimilation and sometimes reinterpretation, rather than a crude choice between indigenous or foreign. But the visual experience of many Ashokan and later city dwellers in India was considerably conditioned by foreign arts, translated to an Indian environment, just as
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#17327727634697436-502: The Sarnath lions did show a conventionalized style associated with Achaemenid or Sargonid empires, but the floral motifs on the Mauryan abaci show the influence of western Asian traditions older than any in the Hellenistic world. He also echoed Irwin's idea that as there are no examples elsewhere of "single, free-standing" pillars, they must be the product of a South Asian tradition, perhaps in non-durable materials such as wood for
7579-724: The South Asian periphery but as the result of Ashoka's entrepreneurial engagement with the larger world. The culture in India was more receptive to innovation and there was a sense of a common culture, caused partly by the expansion of Buddhism to the borders with Iran, and the appearance of markers proclaiming a message. When the Ashokan empire fell, the breakdown was drastic. New styles of art emerged, but their artistic inspirations and appeal were more local. Author and editor Richard Stoneman arguing more generally about sculpture in early historic South Asia suggests that in figural and decorative sculpture, style and content need to be considered separately. "Techniques of carving," he states, "are not
7722-460: The West Asiatic winged beasts, and grapes, went on to remark that ‘nothing in these carvings is really mimetic, nothing certainly which degrades their art to the rank of a servile school’." In the days leading to India's independence, the Sarnath capital played an important role in the creation of both the state emblem and the national flag of the Dominion of India . They were modelled on
7865-431: The abacus are four lions. In this context, it means that only the frontal figures are visible joined at the shoulders, each with its back to another so as to form a pair and two pairs are perpendicular. The lions are each 1.1 metres ( 3 + 3 ⁄ 4 ft) tall and have been described as "life-sized." Oertel describes the lions to be "standing back-to-back" in his original report of 1908. Other authors have used
8008-546: The addorsed capitals of the Achaemenid Empire. But all other aspects are Indian. "The four lions," according to her, "very likely signify "the sovereignty of both Ashoka, since the pillar was erected near the capital of his kingdom and of the truths taught by the Buddha, whose clan, the Shakyas, used the lion as their emblem." Scholars have debated the meanings of the wheels, the large one that had once surmounted
8151-535: The advent of the Roman empire. Others who made noteworthy contributions were the linguist and Buddhism scholar Jean Przyluski , art historian Benjamin Rowland , and cultural historian and Sanskritist Vasudeva S. Agrawala , but rather than the archaeology or history, they concentrated on the symbolism which they thought was given concrete form by features of pre-Buddhist metaphysics. In 1973, John Irwin challenged
8294-467: The alluvial plain of the Indus and its tributaries. In addition, there was a region with disparate flora, fauna, and habitats, up to ten times as large, which had been shaped culturally and economically by the Indus. Around 6500 BCE, agriculture emerged in Balochistan , on the margins of the Indus alluvium. In the following millennia, settled life made inroads into the Indus plains, setting
8437-648: The archaic Greek had been by the Syrian, the Roman by the Greek, and the Persian by the arts of their whole empire." To Alexander Cunningham in Sanchi in 1851, the addorsed lions in the gateways and especially their claws bore the signs of Greek influence. "Many of the details," continues Stonemen, "such as the manes, do remind one strongly of Greek styles of carving." Citing art historian Sheila Huntington, Stoneman describes
8580-673: The art historian Ananda Coomaraswamy argued in 1935 that Buddhist symbolism was not the only one established in the Vedic period which had preceded Buddhism and during which worship did not have a visual representation. The dharmachakra chiefly stood in Coomaraswamy's words for "the Revolution of the year, as Father Time, the flowing tide of all begotten things, dependent on the Sun.” According to Guha, "Coomaraswamy’s interpretations aided
8723-416: The assertions of foreign influence by advancing three hypotheses: (a) Not all pillars were made for Ashoka; some had been adapted for his use; (b) whereas the four lions did seem to have Persian influence, the spiritedness of bull and the elephant betray an intimate familiarity with animals whose habitat did not extend to Iran; and (c) Ashoka had channelled a preexisting industry and culture devoted to treating
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#17327727634698866-419: The basis of pictorial content and ideological infrastructure; and both seem to be right." A transmission of Hellentistic architectural and decorative features from the Seleucid cities of Central Asia, or the Greco-Bactrian city of Ai-Khanoum were posited by Boardman, who stated, "The Sarnath lions take the same forms a little farther, but again the realistic carving of the flews, the crinkled folds beside
9009-544: The capital and the four appearing in relief along the rim of the abacus. Some have likened the wheels, especially the lost larger one, to the Buddhist wheel of the moral law, the dharmachakra , which the Buddha began to turn in Sarnath and whose motion through time and space has spread his message universally. Others have thought them to have been nonsectarian symbols, promoting an ethical notion of rulership, or chakravartin (literally wheel turner) which Ashoka might have been aspiring to present himself, to align himself with
9152-405: The capital to a male figure from Parkham , Marshall wrote, "While the Sārnāth capital is thus an exotic, alien to Indian ideas in expression and in execution, the statue of Pārkham falls naturally into line with other products of indigenous art and affords a valuable starting point for the study of its evolution." The realism of the lions, the straining tendons of their paws, and the "flesh around
9295-414: The capital was secured to the intact pillar by a metal dowel . The lions supported a larger wheel, also polished, symbolizing the dharmachakra , the Buddhist wheel of the "social order and the sacred law," which is lost except for fragments. It was held in place by a shaft. According to the detailed Catalogue of the Museum of Archaeology at Sarnath , 1914, written by Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni
9438-412: The centre of the flag of the Indian National Congress , the main instrument of Indian nationalism. He also attempted to give the dharmachakra the meaning of peace and internationalism which in his view had prevailed in Ashoka's empire at the time of the erection of the pillars. The imaginative treatment of the lion changed in other ways after emperor Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism and the raising of
9581-482: The citadel representing centralised authority and an increasingly urban quality of life. Another town of this stage was found at Kalibangan in India on the Hakra River. Trade networks linked this culture with related regional cultures and distant sources of raw materials, including lapis lazuli and other materials for bead-making. By this time, villagers had domesticated numerous crops, including peas , sesame seeds , dates , and cotton, as well as animals, including
9724-514: The cities for constructing seals, beads and other objects. Among the artefacts discovered were beautiful glazed faïence beads. Steatite seals have images of animals, people (perhaps gods), and other types of inscriptions, including the yet un-deciphered writing system of the Indus Valley Civilisation . Some of the seals were used to stamp clay on trade goods. Although some houses were larger than others, Indus civilisation cities were remarkable for their apparent, if relative, egalitarianism . All
9867-437: The civilisation may have contained between one and five million individuals during its florescence. A gradual drying of the region during the 3rd millennium BCE may have been the initial stimulus for its urbanisation. Eventually it also reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise and to disperse its population to the east. Although over a thousand Mature Harappan sites have been reported and nearly
10010-478: The common practice of planning a conquest involved the swift and strictly defined desecration of those temples that were supported and frequented by royalty. The strategy was not new to India but had been prevalent there considerably before the arrival of the Ghaznavids and the Ghurids . Temples had been the inevitable arenas for the struggle for kingly power. The Turkish invaders followed the settled patterns. Among Hindus and Jains, many temples have survived until
10153-410: The death rate increased, as the close living conditions of humans and domesticated animals led to an increase in contagious diseases. According to one estimate, the population of the Indus civilisation at its peak may have been between one and five million. During its height the civilisation extended from Balochistan in the west to western Uttar Pradesh in the east, from northeastern Afghanistan in
10296-409: The development of cities. The IVC residents did not develop irrigation capabilities, relying mainly on the seasonal monsoons leading to summer floods. Brooke further notes that the development of advanced cities coincides with a reduction in rainfall, which may have triggered a reorganisation into larger urban centres. According to J.G. Shaffer and D.A. Lichtenstein, the Mature Harappan civilisation
10439-527: The dissolution of the East India Company and the establishment of Crown rule in India , archaeology on the subcontinent became more formally organised with the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Alexander Cunningham , the Survey's first director-general, who had visited Harappa in 1853 and had noted the imposing brick walls, visited again to carry out a survey, but this time of
10582-501: The fall of the Achaemenid Empire in 330 BCE, have led some to conjecture an eastward migration of Iranian stonemasons among whom the tradition of naturalistic carving had been preserved during the intervening decades. Others have countered that a tradition of erecting columns in wood and copper had a history in India and the transition to stone was but a small step in an empire and period in which ideas and technologies were in
10725-463: The first millennium CE, they remained prominent in the religious life of central and northeastern regions well into the early centuries of the second millennium. This occurred despite Hindu and Jain religious establishments increasingly attracting the support of both the ordinary, non-clerical, public and royalty. "In the historiography of India," according to archaeologist Lars Fogelin, "the thirteenth through fifteenth centuries are often depicted as
10868-514: The foot of the Bolan Pass in Balochistan , excavations were carried out in Mehrgarh by French archaeologist Jean-François Jarrige and his team in the early 1970s. The cities of the ancient Indus had "social hierarchies, their writing system, their large planned cities and their long-distance trade [which] mark them to archaeologists as a full-fledged 'civilisation.'" The mature phase of
11011-510: The four quarters." In the Aṅguttara Nikāya , the Buddha compared himself to the Indian lotus , a flower that rises clean and pure from muddy pond water, as he rose above an impure world to achieve awakening. According to art historian Gail Maxwell, The lions are fashioned so as to affect the viewer by the use of shape, colour, and texture, not necessarily to represent reality, suggestive of
11154-433: The general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra Rivers and their tributaries. A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident in the Indus Valley Civilisation, making them the first urban centre in the region. The quality of municipal town planning suggests the knowledge of urban planning and efficient municipal governments which placed a high priority on hygiene , or, alternatively, accessibility to
11297-571: The graves of Mehrgarh beginning in the Togau phase (3800 BCE)." Gallego Romero et al. (2011) state that their research on lactose tolerance in India suggests that "the west Eurasian genetic contribution identified by Reich et al. (2009) principally reflects gene flow from Iran and the Middle East." They further note that "[t]he earliest evidence of cattle herding in South Asia comes from
11440-411: The houses had access to water and drainage facilities. This gives the impression of a society with relatively low wealth concentration . Archaeological records provide no immediate answers for a centre of power or for depictions of people in power in Harappan society. But, there are indications of complex decisions being taken and implemented. For instance, the majority of the cities were constructed in
11583-405: The intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lion_Capital&oldid=841156918 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Lion Capital of Ashoka The Lion Capital of Ashoka is the capital , or head, of
11726-558: The jaws" have led others to ask about the provenance of some of the art commonly ascribed to the Maurya period. Expanding on the theme further Vincent Smith wrote in 1930 that the shine of the Mauryan pillars, the lotus bell bases of their capitals and the stylized lions, suggested Iranian carvers had migrated to the Mauryan empire after Alexander the Great 's sacking of Persepolis in 330 BCE. He and others after him have detected Persian-Hellenistic influences in Mauryan art . The subject
11869-446: The late Mr. R. D. Banerji , to whom belongs the credit of having discovered, if not Mohenjo-daro itself, at any rate its high antiquity, and his immediate successors in the task of excavation, Messrs. M.S. Vats and K.N. Dikshit . ... no one probably except myself can fully appreciate the difficulties and hardships which they had to face in the three first seasons at Mohenjo-daro." — From, John Marshall (ed), Mohenjo-daro and
12012-590: The lion capital. Not just a symbol of imperial strength or the Buddha's power, the lion became also a symbol of peace. Ashoka's lion capital has been used in memorials on battlefields. In the Ypres landscape, according to historian Karen Shelby, "the Indian Forces Memorial is the most striking. Through what would be unusual imagery for western eyes, the sculpture asserts an Indian presence. Eschewing traditional western figurative forms of commemoration,
12155-524: The lions and the dharmachakra of the capital, and their adoption constituted an attempt to give India a symbolism of ethical sovereignty. On 22 July 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru , the interim prime minister of India , and later the prime minister of the Republic of India proposed formally in the Constituent Assembly of India , which was tasked with creating the Constitution of India : Resolved that
12298-490: The local population. Despite these reports, Harappa was raided even more perilously for its bricks after the British annexation of the Punjab in 1848–49. A considerable number were carted away as track ballast for the railway lines being laid in the Punjab. Nearly 160 km (100 mi) of railway track between Multan and Lahore , laid in the mid-1850s, was supported by Harappan bricks. In 1861, three years after
12441-401: The lowest member of the capital, and the whole 2.1 metres (7 ft) tall, carved out of a single block of sandstone and highly polished, was secured to its monolithic column by a metal dowel . Erected after Ashoka's conversion to Buddhism , it commemorated the site of Gautama Buddha 's first sermon some two centuries before. The capital eventually fell to the ground and was buried. It
12584-513: The means of religious ritual. As seen in Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and the recently partially excavated Rakhigarhi , this urban plan included the world's first known urban sanitation systems . Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained water from wells . From a room that appears to have been set aside for bathing, waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Houses opened only to inner courtyards and smaller lanes. The housebuilding in some villages in
12727-513: The mouth, is not a feature of Persian or eastern work at all, but a reflection of the realistic rendering of this feature by Hellenistic Greek artists, who could effectively reduce the force of the compact eastern forms by such treatment. It remains odd that Panthera leo persica , whose distinctive belly hair (unlike the African lion) was carefully depicted by Mesopotamian artists, whence by Greek and then Persian, should lack this feature here; indeed
12870-592: The museum since. Daya Ram Sahni , Assistant Superintendent of the ASI, and later its Director-General, supervised the organisation and labelling of the museum's collection and in 1914 completed the Catalogue of the Museum of Archaeology at Sarnath ". Oertel's detailed report, "Excavations at Särnäth", had appeared in 1908 in the Archæological Survey of India , Annual Report, 1904–5. The capital
13013-438: The negative. He alone tried to prove that Indian artists had arrived independently at their form of bell. The logic of his argument, however, was weak." According to Irwin, Coomaraswamy had picked some "untypical" details of reliefs of a century later in which the lotus had been stylized to argue that "the petals, stamen and pericarp of the lotus flower as stylized ... must have inspired the rope-moulding and abacus respectively of
13156-442: The non-elite laity consisted of little more than serving as landlords." According to Eaton, "Detached from a Buddhist laity, these establishments had by this time become dependent on the patronage of local royal authorities, with whom they were identified." Echoing the same theme, art historian Frederick Asher says, " Muhammad of Ghor , who did conquer Benares in 1193–94 ... might have plundered Sarnath, more likely for whatever wealth
13299-718: The north to Gujarat state in the south. The largest number of sites are in the Punjab region , Gujarat, Haryana , Rajasthan , Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir states, Sindh , and Balochistan. Coastal settlements extended from Sutkagan Dor in Western Baluchistan to Lothal in Gujarat. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in Afghanistan which is the northernmost site of
13442-443: The one led by Mortimer Wheeler , a new director-general of the ASI appointed in 1944, and including Ahmad Hasan Dani . After the partition of India in 1947, when most excavated sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation lay in territory awarded to Pakistan, the Archaeological Survey of India, its area of authority reduced, carried out large numbers of surveys and excavations along the Ghaggar-Hakra system in India. Some speculated that
13585-431: The other two had come off before being buried and upon excavation required affixing. Of these damaged, one lion was missing the lower jaw at the time of the initial excavation and the other the upper, both not found since. On the side of the abacus and below each lion is carved a wheel of 24 spokes in high relief. Between the wheels, also shown in high relief are four animals following each other from right to left. They are
13728-457: The pillar and copper for the crown. Irwin's first hypothesis has been challenged by Frederick Asher who says, "That the pillars attributed to Aśoka are really from his time is a virtual certainty despite arguments that they date earlier (Irwin 973). The author of the pillars’ inscriptions, Piyadasi, is known to be Aśoka from the Maski inscription in present-day Karnataka. Moreover, the symbolism of
13871-466: The pillars and their capitals, appropriate for these royal edicts, suggests that the pillars were made to carry the inscriptions." Osmund Bopearachchi has mentioned Irwin and V. S. Agrawala among those who have held that the early stone carving was the work of Indians alone. He has suggested that the inspiration for them and the technique of polishing them came from Persia, noting further the absence of any archaeological evidence for Agrawala's claim that
14014-406: The pillars that were considered Ashokan had been erected by the orders of emperor Ashoka during the twenty-five-year period from 257 BCE to 232 BCE. Setting the stage for future debate he suggested that their execution was "essentially foreign." Following up in 1922, John Marshall was the first scholar to suggest that the Sarnath capital was the work of foreign artisans working in India. Comparing
14157-574: The placing of the 'Sarnath wheel,' found broken and not physically connected with the lions on the pillar during Oertel’s excavations, on the Indian national flag." Guha adds, "The historian and superintendent of the Museums Branch of the Archaeological Survey of India (1946–51), V. S. Agrawala, who was in charge of making the plaster cast in 1946, followed him in extending its meaning as the chakra dhvaja or 'the wheel flag.' Without invoking any new evidence Agrawala laboured to explain that 'there
14300-507: The present day. Whereas royal temples were raided and brought down, the ones attended by ordinary people were often left undisturbed. "The same could have occurred with Buddhist institutions focused on the laity, had they existed." according to Fogelin, "However, by the thirteenth century CE, Buddhist monasteries in the Gangetic Plain and northeastern India were prominently supported by local and regional kings, and their relations with
14443-468: The prestige and universality of the Buddha. According to cultural historian Vasudeva Sharan Agrawala , the dharmachakra represented the body of the Buddha and the lions the throne. In his view, the Sarnath capital is equally Vedic and Buddhist in the significance of its various parts. According to the Indologist John Irwin, the wheels on the rim of the abacus do not represent the Buddhist wheels of
14586-407: The region still resembles in some respects the housebuilding of the Harappans. The ancient Indus systems of sewerage and drainage that were developed and used in cities throughout the Indus region were far more advanced than any found in contemporary urban sites in the Middle East and even more efficient than those in many areas of Pakistan and India today. The advanced architecture of the Harappans
14729-501: The right bank of the Varuna river and a pillar nearby erected by Ashoka that was, "glistening and smooth as ice." He mentioned a monastery in "Mrigdeva", or Deer Park 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) away. Here there was another pillar erected by Ashoka about 21 metres (70 ft) high and shining "as bright as jade." In the view of historian Frederick Asher, Xuanzang's account sometimes employed monuments as symbolic devices to fix miracles in
14872-417: The rim of the abacus have been associated with events in the life of Prince Siddhartha: the elephant with his mother Queen Maya's dream about his birth; the horse with Kanthaka , the mount of his departure from the palace in the dead of night, and the bull with his first meditation under the rose apple tree ( jambu , syzygium aqueum ). The abacus and its animals have been related to Lake Anavatapta of
15015-466: The sacred law but chariot wheels of the period which typically had 24 spokes. According to the anthropologist Lars Fogelin, as the only capital to exhibit wheel motifs, the lion capital at Sarnath is thought to symbolize the wheel of the moral law in "a specifically Buddhist sense of the term." Overall, the symbolism of the Sarnath column and capital is thought to be more Buddhist than secular. According to cultural historian and museologist Sudeshna Guha,
15158-473: The same as the choice of subject matter, and choices of decorative detail lie somewhere between. Copying is not the only model: interaction and creative re-use may be more rewarding concepts." He describes the differing interpretations by art historians John Boardman and Margaret Cool Root of the extent of Greek influence on the art of Persepolis . Whereas Boardman sees "similarities, and probably influence, in technique and style," Root discounts influence "on
15301-466: The same expression in describing the lions' attitude , including in a 2014 study and a 2017 review, or have quoted Oertel using it, in a 2020 study. The archaeologist Kazim Abdullaev , who analysed the pose of the Sarnath lions in a 2014 study, concluded they were seated on account of their backs sloping more steeply upwards than those of standing lions. They have been described as seated in some other studies. Two lions were undamaged. The heads of
15444-612: The second-millennium BCE, which are unrelated to the mature phase of the Indus Valley Civilization. Recent geophysical research suggests that unlike the Sarasvati, described in the Rigveda as a snow-fed river, the Ghaggar-Hakra was a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers, which became seasonal around the time that the civilisation diminished, approximately 4,000 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilisation
15587-544: The site of his first sermon and the birthplace of the Buddhist order. Sarnath was pillaged again in 1894 when a large number of bricks were carried away for use as ballast in a nearby railway line. When F. O. Oertel , an engineer in the Public Works Department, who had surveyed Hindu and Buddhist sites in Burma and Central India in the 1890s was appointed superintending engineer at Varanasi, he constructed
15730-464: The site's two mounds. Farther south, along the main stem of the Indus in Sind province, the largely undisturbed site of Mohenjo-daro had attracted notice. Marshall deputed a succession of ASI officers to survey the site. These included D. R. Bhandarkar (1911), R. D. Banerji (1919, 1922–1923), and M. S. Vats (1924). In 1923, on his second visit to Mohenjo-daro, Baneriji wrote to Marshall about
15873-417: The site, postulating an origin in "remote antiquity", and noting a congruence of some of its artifacts with those of Harappa. Later in 1923, Vats, also in correspondence with Marshall, noted the same more specifically about the seals and the script found at both sites. On the weight of these opinions, Marshall ordered crucial data from the two sites to be brought to one location and invited Banerji and Sahni to
16016-513: The southwest of the Dhamek . He proceeded to the Main Shrine, north of the stupa. It was to the west of this shrine that he found the buried stump and fragments of the Ashokan pillar at Sarnath, and soon its lion capital. The Museum of Archaeology at Sarnath , now Archaeological Museum Sarnath , the first site museum of the ASI, was completed in 1910. The lion capital has been displayed in
16159-416: The spot at which the Buddha had preached his first sermon. For his investigations, Cunningham preferred to glean information from foreign sources. A French translation by Stanislas Julien of the travels of the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (then known as Hiuan-tsang) in India from 629 CE to 645 CE had appeared in 1857–1858. In his account, Xuanzang mentioned a tall stupa to the northeast of Varanasi off
16302-412: The stage for the growth of rural and urban settlements. The more organized sedentary life, in turn, led to a net increase in the birth rate. The large urban centres of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa very likely grew to containing between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals, and during the civilisation's florescence, the population of the subcontinent grew to between 4–6 million people. During this period
16445-443: The statue is a replication of one of the Asokan lion capitals. ... The connections between the symbols of the lion capital and the postwar peaceful rhetoric are striking. Asoka’s acceptance of Buddhism was the result of witnessing the devastation after the successful Battle of Kalinga (261 B.C.E.). Affected by the bloodshed, he was filled with remorse and resolved to pursue a non-violent and peaceful approach to life. The latter symbolism
16588-648: The tall column supporting the capital, and the larger wheel on top. Over the centuries, the lion capital of Ashoka served as an important artistic model, and inspired many creations throughout India and beyond: Indus Valley Civilisation The Indus Valley Civilisation ( IVC ), also known as the Indus Civilisation , was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia , lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia , it
16731-635: The technique went back to the Vedic Age and was inherited by the Mauryans. Upinder Singh has observed that the cultural standing of the Asiatic lion ( Panthera leo Persica , also Persian lion ) as a symbol of projecting political power had significantly increased in India after the rise of the Mahajanapadas in the second half of the first millennium BCE. By Ashoka's time, the Asiatic lion had
16874-882: The threshold of such a discovery in the plains of the Indus." In the next issue, a week later, the British Assyriologist Archibald Sayce was able to point to very similar seals found in Bronze Age levels in Mesopotamia and Iran, giving the first strong indication of their date; confirmations from other archaeologists followed. Systematic excavations began in Mohenjo-daro in 1924–25 with that of K. N. Dikshit , continuing with those of H. Hargreaves (1925–1926), and Ernest J. H. Mackay (1927–1931). By 1931, much of Mohenjo-daro had been excavated, but occasional excavations continued, such as
17017-467: The true eternal law]." In other interpretations, the four small animals shown on the side of the abacus have been thought to represent the cardinal directions: the lion (north), elephant (west), bull (south), and horse (east), and the smaller wheels for the solstices and the equinoxes . According to Raymond Allchin , " The abacus depicts four Dharmacakras facing the four quarters, interspersed by four noble beasts, who in early Buddhist texts represent
17160-433: The upper and lower lids. Although the stones were lost, one pin had remained embedded in the upper left lid of one of the lions at the time of the discovery. The first of the existing visual portrayals of lions in South Asia are the Maurya columns such as the Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath. Some scholars believe that lions were introduced into India from western Asia as a quarry for royal hunts, implying that they became
17303-536: The vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra , a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan. The term Harappan is sometimes applied to the Indus Civilisation after its type site Harappa , the first to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then the Punjab province of British India and is now Punjab, Pakistan . The discovery of Harappa and soon afterwards Mohenjo-daro
17446-470: The wake of large-scale killing and destruction by his army in Kalinga , or what is today Odisha in eastern India, he gave a new direction to the imaginative treatment of the lion: from being a symbolic object of royal domination, the lion became an emblem of royal prowess. According to architectural historian Pushkar Sohoni , "In early Buddhist architecture, the lion, along with the horse, the elephant, and
17589-587: The west of the Dhamekh. Colin Mackenzie visited in 1815 and found some sculpture which he donated to the Asiatic Society of Bengal . In 1861 Alexander Cunningham attempted to dig down into the Dhamekh from its top to uncover relics. He soon abandoned the effort, but not before noting that votive models of the stupa were scattered in the vicinity, lending credence to the view that the Dhamekh marked
17732-472: The west, and predates the Kot Diji Phase (2800–2600 BCE, Harappan 2), named after a site in northern Sindh , Pakistan, near Mohenjo-daro . The earliest examples of the Indus script date to the 3rd millennium BCE. The mature phase of earlier village cultures is represented by Rehman Dheri and Amri in Pakistan. Kot Diji represents the phase leading up to Mature Harappan, with
17875-475: The white band. The ratio of the width to the length of the flag shall ordinarily be 2:3. Although several members in the assembly had proposed other meanings for India's national symbols, Nehru's meaning came to prevail. On 11 December 1947, the Constituent Assembly adopted the resolution. Nehru was well-acquainted with the history of Ashoka, having written about it in his books Letters from
18018-510: The world system that had briefly emerged during Ashoka's rule. In his view, South Asia had a hitherto unprecedented level of engagement with the Mediterranean world during the Mauryan period. It is no coincidence that it is during that period stone sculpture appeared in South Asia, at least in the form associated with Ashokan columns. But this should not be seen in colonialist terms as an export from an Achaemenian or Hellenistic centre to
18161-485: The zebu, were considered auspicious. All these animals appeared as a standard quartet on many Mauryan pillars." The lion capital and its Ashokan pillar have complex meanings. The lions—the four sitting addorsed on the abacus and the one badly damaged appearing in relief on its rim—have been associated with the Buddha, one of whose names was Shakyasimha , the lion of the Shakya clan. The three other animals on
18304-568: Was "a fusion of the Bagor, Hakra, and Kot Diji traditions or 'ethnic groups' in the Ghaggar-Hakra valley on the borders of India and Pakistan". Also, according to a more recent summary by Maisels (2003), "The Harappan oecumene formed from a Kot Dijian/ Amri-Nal synthesis". He also says that, in the development of complexity, the site of Mohenjo-daro has priority, along with the Hakra-Ghaggar cluster of sites, "where Hakra wares actually precede
18447-618: Was Harappa, a metropolis of the Indus civilisation in the valley of Indus's tributary, the Ravi river . Masson made copious notes and illustrations of Harappa's rich historical artifacts, many lying half-buried. In 1842, Masson included his observations of Harappa in the book Narrative of Various Journeys in Baluchistan, Afghanistan, and the Punjab . He dated the Harappa ruins to a period of recorded history, erroneously mistaking it to have been described earlier during Alexander's campaign. Masson
18590-723: Was accepted in December 1947. Sarnath had a history of visits and some exploration in the 18th and 19th centuries. William Hodges , the painter visited in 1780 and made a record of the Dhamek Stupa , the most conspicuous monument at the site. In 1794, Jonathan Duncan , the Commissioner of Benares noted diggings for bricks carried out by Jagat Singh, the Dewan of the Raja of Benares. These had taken place 150 metres (490 ft) to
18733-415: Was carved "without the experience imported by Persian immigrants," but suggests that regardless of Ashoka's purpose of using Buddhism as a unifying force, his success depended on the prevailing worship of the pole (stambha) as the axis mundi in the native pre-Buddhist shrines. Harry Falk , while categorically stating a Mauryan debt to "the stonework inherited from Achaemenid Iran," of the appearance during
18876-626: Was cracked across the neck just above the lotus, and two of its lions had sustained damage to their heads. It is displayed not far from the excavation site in the Sarnath Museum , the oldest site museum of the ASI. The lion capital is among the first group of significant stone sculptures to have appeared in South Asia after the end of the Indus Valley Civilisation 1,600 years earlier. Their sudden appearance, as well as similarities to Persepolitan columns of Iran before
19019-474: Was excavated by the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) in the very early years of the 20th century. The excavation was undertaken by F. O. Oertel in the ASI winter season of 1904–1905. The column, which had broken before it became buried, remains in its original location in Sarnath, protected but on view for visitors. The Lion Capital was in much better condition, though not undamaged. It
19162-499: Was found in Banawali , which was probably used for testing the purity of gold (such a technique is still used in some parts of India). The people of the Indus civilisation achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass, and time. They were among the first to develop a system of uniform weights and measures. A comparison of available objects indicates large scale variation across the Indus territories. Their smallest division, which
19305-408: Was imagined to be stored there ... than for the sake of iconoclastic destruction." Sarnath did not have unbroken history. Very few Buddhists remained in India after the 12th century. Buddhists from Tibet, Burma, and Southeast Asia did make pilgrimages to South Asia from the 13th to the 17th centuries, but their most common destination was Bodhgaya , the site of the Buddha's enlightenment, not Sarnath
19448-407: Was impressed by the site's extraordinary size and by several large mounds formed from long-existing erosion. Two years later, the Company contracted Alexander Burnes to sail up the Indus to assess the feasibility of water travel for its army. Burnes, who also stopped in Harappa, noted the baked bricks employed in the site's ancient masonry, but noted also the haphazard plundering of these bricks by
19591-594: Was introduced full-fledged from Near-East to South Asia," and the similarities between Neolithic sites from eastern Mesopotamia and the western Indus valley, which are evidence of a "cultural continuum" between those sites. But given the originality of Mehrgarh, Jarrige concludes that Mehrgarh has an earlier local background, and is not a "'backwater' of the Neolithic culture of the Near East". Lukacs and Hemphill suggest an initial local development of Mehrgarh, with
19734-505: Was one of three early civilisations of North Africa , Southwest Asia and South Asia , and of the three, the most widespread, its sites spanning an area including much of modern-day Pakistan , northwestern India and northeast Afghanistan . The civilisation flourished both in the alluvial plain of the Indus River , which flows through the length of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon -fed rivers that once coursed in
19877-490: Was presumably thirty-two." The original diameter of the surmounting wheel was conjectured to have been 0.84 metres ( 2 + 3 ⁄ 4 ft). The wheel fragments are on display in the Sarnath Museum. According to the museum's Catalogue , the lions did not have eyeballs; instead, precious stones were initially placed in the eye sockets. The stones were held in place by iron pins passing through fine holes in
20020-694: Was roughly contemporary with the other riverine civilisations of the ancient world: Ancient Egypt along the Nile , Mesopotamia in the lands watered by the Euphrates and the Tigris , and China in the drainage basin of the Yellow River and the Yangtze . By the time of its mature phase, the civilisation had spread over an area larger than the others, which included a core of 1,500 kilometres (900 mi) up
20163-581: Was taken up by Mortimer Wheeler who added that until the advent of the Mauryas Indian art had not strayed beyond the confines of folk art, and on that basis speculated that two or three generations after the downfall of the Achaemenid empire Hellenistic craftsmen working in Persepolis had been hired by emperor Ashoka. Wheeler did suggest that free-standing pillars had not appeared in Europe before
20306-473: Was the culmination of work that had begun after the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj in 1861. There were earlier and later cultures called Early Harappan and Late Harappan in the same area. The early Harappan cultures were populated from Neolithic cultures, the earliest and best-known of which is named after Mehrgarh , in Balochistan , Pakistan. Harappan civilisation
20449-511: Was written on-site, but from memory upon returning to China. Giving more literal credence to the accounts of Faxian and Xuanzang, the museum curator Sushma Jansari suggests that they could imply the existence of a greater number of Ashokan pillars during early historic South Asia and its immediate aftermath than had remained at the time of the 18th- and 19th-century British investigations. Although Buddhism and Buddhist monasticism had suffered setbacks in northwestern and southwestern India in
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