A Handbook of Indian Art/Section 1/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
asokan pillars and the "bell-shaped" or lotus capital
Near the southern gateway of the Great Stūpa the Emperor Asoka put up a pillar carved in stone, and inscribed with one of his famous edicts with which he propagated Buddhist teaching or issued orders relating to the conduct of the Sangha. The pillar when intact, says Sir John Marshall, was about 42 feet in height, and consisted of a round and slightly tapering monolithic shaft, with bell-shaped capital surmounted by an abacus and a crowning ornament of four lions set back to back, the whole finely finished and polished to a remarkable lustre from top to bottom.[1]
The same high authority, in common with Fergusson, maintains that the "bell-shaped" capital was evolved in Persia. "It was from Persian originals, specimens of which are still extant in the plains of the Murghab, at Istakhr, Natesh-i-Rustam, and Persepolis, that the smooth unfluted shafts of the Mauryan columns were copied." It may be granted that the craftsmen who executed this and other Asokan columns were in all probability skilled Persian masons attracted to Asoka's court by the fame of the great emperor. But that Asoka's imperial ensign was a mere copy of Persepolitan pillars is not in the least likely. Asoka was not a parvenu monarch constrained to borrow his heraldic devices from others of more aristocratic lineage. The Indo-Aryan clan of which he was the chief had traditions at least as old as those of the Persian kings, and the craftsmen of the imperial court at Pātaliputra, whether Greeks, Persians, or Indians, would have had to adapt their ideas to these traditions. The constant recurrence of the "bell-shaped" capital in all the earliest Indian sculpture shows that it was the usual architectural form in Asoka's time; it had doubtless been carved in wood by the royal craftsmen of India for many generations previously. The reason for Asoka's preference for Persian craftsmen is disclosed in the inscription on the Sānchī column. They were highly skilled stone-masons, and Asoka desired that his edicts should remain in force "as long as my sons and great-grandsons may reign, and as long as the Moon and the Sun shall endure."
Moreover, the Bharhut and Sānchī sculptures show us that the symbolism of Asoka's pillars has nothing to do with a bell, but is an adaptation to structural purposes of the same lotus-and-vase motive which, with a different implication, served for a symbol of the Buddha's nativity. Here, however, it is the blue lotus, Vishnu's flower, which is used instead of the pink Brahmā lotus.
At the eastern gateway of Bharhut one of the Lokapālas, or Guardians of the Four Gateways of the Sky, is shown carrying the "bell-shaped" standard, surmounted not by lions, but by Garuda, the eagle of Vishnu, the Sun-god, who has for his emblem the blue lotus.
The lotus throne of the Buddha is nearly always represented in Indian art with the outer fringe of petals turned downwards, and the whole flower is frequently shown naturalistically with the petals turned down upon the stalk in a form closely resembling the so-called bell of the Asokan capitals. At Bharhut and at Sānchī the petals and stamens of the flower are often carefully carved upon the so-called "bell-capital," and the shaft of the pillar is fixed in a water vase which forms its base, as is the case at Kārlē (Pl. IX, a). The representation of the complete Asokan standard, carved in relief on one of the Sānchī railings, shows two lotus buds springing from under the abacus of the capital, a decisive proof that the "bell" represented the turned-down petals of the flower (see Pl. VI, b). The ovolo moulding above the "bell" evidently represents the melon-shaped fruit of the blue lotus (Nymphæa cœrulea).
It was natural that the lotus, the especial flower of the gods and the favourite of Indian poets, should have been adapted by Indian craftsmen as a motif for the decoration of pillars, as it was in Egypt. The Egyptians, however, used the bud or half-opened flower to form the capital of a pillar; the Indian craftsmen preferred the open flower with turned-down petals because it suggested to them the heavenly vault supported by the holy mountain, the pivot of the universe.
This "bell-shaped" capital, as Asoka's imperial ensign, was the symbol of universal sovereignty. Probably it was meant to apply to the Law of the Blessed One rather than to Asoka himself, for a section of the seed-vessel of Nymphæa cœrulea is the Wheel of the Law which is here supported by four lions. The fact that a similar design was used for the standard of Vishnu, the Upholder of the Universe, shows that the idea was an old Indo-Aryan one, and not a newfangled notion imported by Persian sculptors of the period. Moreover, it is evident that, while the symbolism was perfectly understood by the royal craftsmen of India, it was unfamiliar to Asoka's imported Perso-Greek or Baktrian masons. The former decorate the "bell" with the characteristic pointed petals of the flower, and indicate the stamens and seed-vessel clearly, while the latter change the shape of the seed-vessel and conventionalise the petals so that the resemblance to the lotus is almost lost. The Gandharam sculptors, equally unfamiliar with Indian symbolism, decorated the bell with acanthus leaves.
In Brahmanical symbolism the mystery of the sunrise is represented by the lotus[2] upon which Brahmā, the Creator, sits enthroned, springing from the navel of Nārāyana, the Eternal Spirit, who lies asleep at the bottom of the waters of chaos reposing in the coils of the world-serpent, Ananta, or the Milky Way (see Pl. LX, b). What this symbolism meant in Mahāyāna Buddhism is explained in the Tantra Tattva when it compares Prajnā-pāramita, Supreme Wisdom, to a lotus flower. "In the root she is all-Brahman; in stem she is all-Māyā (Illusion); in the flower she is all-world; and in the fruit all-liberation." Applying this to the pillars carved by the early Buddhist builders, who were carrying on the Indo-Aryan traditions from Vedic times, we can understand the ideas they meant to convey. The vase forming the base of the pillar stood for the cosmic waters,[3] "the all-Brahman"; the shaft was the stalk of the mystic flower—the unreality upon which the world-life was supported—the bell-shaped capital was the world itself enfolded by the petals of the sky; the fruit was moksha, liberation, or Nirvāna, which was the goal of existence; the altar upon which the Devas were seated was the Tusitā heavens.
This symbolism is so characteristically Indian, and so widely diffused in early Buddhist art, that the mere coincidence of "bell-shaped" capitals occurring in Persia hardly justifies the name which archæologists have given them. Perhaps Persia borrowed the idea from India, the land of the lotus, together with the flower itself. But it is much more probable that it was evolved by the carvers of the sacrificial posts in Vedic times, when the Aryans occupied the valley of the Euphrates, and were in contact with Egypt and Assyria and with their relatives in Iran. Certainly the Apadāna of Persepolis was not an original creation, but, as M. E. Blochet says, "a compromise between the oldest works of Assyrian art and the most grandiose specimens of Greek architecture." Were it not that the palaces of the Aryan kings in Mesopotamia were built of sacrificial wood, we might yet discover there the prototype of the Persepolitan pillar.
The lotus-and-vase pillar, besides being one of the most ancient of Indian architectural orders, is also the most frequently used. It is found at all periods. It was adopted by the Græco-Roman builders of Gandhara as well as by the craftsmen of Muhammadan India. The Hindu master-builder of the present day continues to use it. This persistent survival is specially significant when it is seen that the most distinctive marks of Hellenistic craftsmanship, the honeysuckle pattern, the acanthus leaf and Corinthian capital which occur so frequently in Mauryan and Kushān times, did not survive in India for more than a few generations. These did not belong to the ritual of Buddhist craftsmanship, and were quickly discarded as meaning less in Indian art. The "Persepolitan bell-shaped" capital survived, because it was not in Asoka's time a foreign importation, but an ancient Vedic symbol which had an established place in the ritual of Buddhism. The Manāsāra Silpa-Sāstra, quoted by Rām Rāz in his Essay on the Architecture of the Hindus, shows that the form of the Hindu temple pillar had a ritualistic significance, just as was the case with the different shapes of altars in Vedic ritual. Thus a pillar with square shaft signified Brahmā-worship, an octagonal one Vishnu-worship, a sixteen-sided one Rudra- or Siva-worship; while the cylindrical pillar without capital or base belonged to Chandra-worship.
These different varieties of pillar shafts, with or without the lotus-and-vase embellishment, are to be found in the ruined temples on the Sānchī hill. Possibly, as suggested above, the plain cylindrical shafts of the Asokan pillars may be a reminiscence of the ancient Chandra-worship with which the stūpa was connected. According to Hieun Tsang, the Chinese pilgrim who visited India in the seventh century a.d., India was known as the Land of the Moon. The holy ground at Benares, contained by the river front and the Panch Kōsi Road, is crescent-shaped. The most sacred places both of Buddhist and Hindu India are those where a mountain torrent pours over a scarp of rock curved like the crescent moon on Siva's brow, reminding the pious pilgrim of the holy Ganges as she descends into the plains of India at Hardwar over Himālayan wooded precipices—the tangled locks of the Great Yogi of Kailāsa, who represents the Brahman ideal of the Enlightened One.
- ↑ Guide to Sānchī, p. 91.
- ↑ In this case the pink lotus—the so-called sacred lotus of Egypt (Nelumbium speciosum)—Brahmā's especial flower.
- ↑ Very likely the vase originally had a practical purpose, to protect the end of a wooden post from damp or from the attacks of white ants: the symbolism of the craftsman was always based upon utilitarian purposes.