NCERT Class 12 - Themes in Indian History Part I, Chapter 2

Mauryan Art and the Decline of the Empire

Mauryan art is the first stone art of historic India. Its finest work is the polished monolithic pillar, crowned by animal capitals. Within fifty years of Ashoka's death the empire broke up, and by about 185 BCE the dynasty was gone.

The Ashokan pillars

• Each pillar is monolithic, cut from a single block of sandstone quarried mainly at Chunar near Varanasi, and carries a distinctive mirror-like polish.
• A pillar has a plain circular shaft, an inverted lotus bell capital, an abacus with animals or a wheel, and a crowning animal.
• The Sarnath Lion Capital has four lions back to back on an abacus bearing a horse, bull, elephant and lion, separated by wheels.
• This capital was adopted as the State Emblem of India on 26 January 1950, and the wheel on it is the model for the Ashoka Chakra in the national flag.
• Other famous capitals are the bull at Rampurva and the lion at Lauriya Nandangarh in Bihar.

How a pillar and capital look

Picture a smooth, slightly tapering column of pale sandstone standing free, without any base, straight out of the ground - it does not sit on a platform. It shines as if oiled. At the top the stone opens outward into a drooping lotus with the petals pointing down, like an upturned bell. On this bell rests a round drum carved with four animals in motion and four wheels between them. Above the drum, four lions stand back to back facing the four directions, so from any side you see one full lion.

Other art of the period

• Stupas - the core of the Sanchi stupa in Madhya Pradesh was built in Ashoka's time; the railings and gateways came later.
• Rock-cut caves - the Barabar and Nagarjuni caves in Bihar, donated to the Ajivikas, are the earliest surviving rock-cut caves and are famous for their polished interiors.
• Popular art stands apart from court art - the Didarganj Yakshi in polished sandstone, found near Patna, and large numbers of terracotta figurines.
• The palace at Pataliputra had an eighty-pillared hall, and its wooden palisade was noted by Megasthenes and confirmed by excavation.

Decline of the empire

• Brihadratha, the last Mauryan ruler, was killed by his commander Pushyamitra Shunga around 185 BCE.
• Weak successors after Ashoka and a partition of the empire between rival claimants broke central control.
• The administration was highly centralised and depended on the king's personal supervision; it could not survive a weak king.
• A financial strain from a huge bureaucracy, welfare works and donations, reflected in the debasement of later punch-marked coins.
• Oppressive provincial officials, especially at Taxila, produced repeated revolts.
• Some historians argue Ashoka's pacifism weakened the army, while others point instead to fresh invasions in the north-west and the growth of independent regional powers.