[10] All the pillars of Ashoka were built at Buddhist monasteries, many important sites from the life of the Buddha and places of pilgrimage.

Ashoka ascended to the throne in 269 BC inheriting the Mauryan empire founded by his grandfather Chandragupta Maurya.

The shafts are always plain and smooth, circular in cross-section, slightly tapering upwards and always chiselled out of a single piece of stone.

The lower parts of the capitals have the shape and appearance of a gently arched bell formed of lotus petals.

The crowning animals are masterpieces of Mauryan art, shown either seated or standing, always in the round and chiselled as a single piece with the abaci.

[27] Many similar columns crowned by sphinxes were discovered in ancient Greece, as in Sparta, Athens or Spata, and some were used as funerary steles.

[27] The Greek sphinx, a lion with the face of a human female, was considered as having ferocious strength, and was thought of as a guardian, often flanking the entrances to temples or royal tombs.

[28]Some scholars such as John Irwin emphasized a reassessment from popular belief of Persian or Greek origin of Ashokan pillars.

[31]Though influence from the west is generally accepted, especially the Persian columns of Achaemenid Persia, there are a number of differences between these and the pillars.

[32] Indian historian Upinder Singh comments on some of the differences and similarities, writing that "If the Ashokan pillars cannot in their entirety be attributed to Persian influence, they must have had an undocumented prehistory within the subcontinent, perhaps a tradition of wooden carving.

But the transition from stone to wood was made in one magnificent leap, no doubt spurred by the imperial tastes and ambitions of the Maurya emperors.

"[33] Whatever the cultural and artistic borrowings from the west, the pillars of Ashoka, together with much of Mauryan art and architectural prowesses such as the city of Pataliputra or the Barabar Caves, remain outstanding in their achievements, and often compare favourably with the rest of the world at that time.

[34][35] Five of the pillars of Ashoka, two at Rampurva, one each at Vaishali, Lauriya Araraj and Lauria Nandangarh possibly marked the course of the ancient Royal highway from Pataliputra to Nepal.

[43][44] The Chinese monks Fa-Hsien and Hsuantsang also reported pillars in Kushinagar, the Jetavana monastery in Sravasti, Rajagriha and Mahasala, which have not been recovered to this day.

The abacus also often seems to display some influence of Greek art: in the case of the Rampurva bull or the Sankassa elephant, it is composed of honeysuckles alternated with stylized palmettes and small rosettes.

The Diamond throne of Bodh Gaya is another example of Ashokan architecture circa 260 BC, and displays a band of carvings with palmettes and geese, similar to those found on several of the Pillars of Ashoka.

The earliest one seems to be the Vaishali pillar, with its stout and short column, the rigid lion and the undecorated square abacus.

Next would follow the Sankissa elephant and the Rampurva bull, also not yet benefiting from Mauryan polish, and using a Hellenistic abacus of lotus and palmettes for decoration.

The abacus would then adopt the Hamsa goose as an animal decorative symbol, in Lauria Nandangarh and the Rampurva lion.

[55] The same Chinese pilgrims have reported that the capital of the Lumbini pillar was a horse (now lost), which, by their time had already fallen to the ground.

These inscriptions were dispersed throughout the areas of modern-day Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Afghanistan and Pakistan and represent the first tangible evidence of Buddhism.

The edicts describe in detail Ashoka's policy of Dhamma, an earnest attempt to solve some of problems that a complex society faced.

These pillar edicts include:[59] The most celebrated capital is the four-lion one at Sarnath (Uttar Pradesh), erected by Emperor Ashoka circa 250 BC.

The lions probably originally supported a Dharma Chakra wheel with 24 spokes, such as is preserved in the 13th century replica erected at Wat Umong near Chiang Mai, Thailand by Thai king Mangrai.

[64] The pillar is now located inside the Allahabad Fort, also the royal palace, built during the 16th century by Akbar at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.

As the fort is occupied by the Indian Army it is essentially closed to the public and special permission is required to see the pillar.

They determined that the script referred to King Piyadasi which was also the epithet of an Indian ruler known as Ashoka who came to the throne 218 years after Buddha's enlightenment.

Scholars have since found 150 of Ashoka's inscriptions, carved into the face of rocks or on stone pillars marking out a domain that stretched across northern India and south below the central plateau of the Deccan.

There were no surviving traces above ground of the Sarnath pillar, mentioned in the accounts of medieval Chinese pilgrims, when the Indian Civil Service engineer F.O.

[15][16] Ashoka also built the Diamond Throne in Bodh Gaya, at the location where the Buddha had reached enlightenment some 200 years earlier.