Ashoka: Essay on Ashoka (700 Words - yourarticlelibrary.com.
It has been said that Ashoka had inscribed edicts about Buddha's lessons on the right path on rock faces and pillars and the lion capital at Sarnath is one such example. Depiction of Lion Capital at Sarnath In Sarnath, there is a stylization in the depiction of the lions.
The Lion capital of Ashoka was initially part of a grand pillar out in the open. Now, however, it is held in a museum in Sarnath. The Asiatic lions featured in this sculpture were so inspiring to behold that in 1950 they were adopted as one of India’s national animals.
The Mauryan Lion Capital Sarnath. The country’s four symbolic animals, a lion, and elephant, a horse and a bull for the North, South, East and West of India follow each other around the base.
State Emblem. The state emblem of India is an adaptation from the Sarnath Lion Capital of Ashoka.; In the original, there are four lions, standing back to back, mounted on an abacus with a frieze carrying sculptures in high relief of an elephant, a galloping horse, a bull and a lion separated by intervening wheels over a bell-shaped lotus.; Carved out of a single block of polished sandstone.
The Lion Capital of Ashoka was originally placed atop the Ashoka pillar at the Buddhist site of Sarnath by the Emperor Ashoka, in about 250 BCE. Though the pillar (or Ashoka Column) is still in its original location, the Lion Capital is now in the Sarnath Museum (state of Uttar Pradesh, India).
These are the remnants of the Ashoka Pillar of Sarnath. Ashoka built a series of pillars throughout the northern Indian subcontinent, and the Ashoka Pillar in Sarnath is perhaps the grandest of them all. In its original form it would have been 12.25 m high, and capped by a Lion Capital.
The Lion Capital at Sarnath. The Lion capital was originally a part of the pillar constructed by Ashoka, the great emperor of the Mauryan dynasty who created the largest empire of ancient India. After the bloody conquest of Kalinga which claimed more than 1,00,000 lives, a deeply distraught Ashoka found solace in the teachings of Buddha.