Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath: India's National Emblem

The Lion Capital of Ashoka is the sculpted top of a stone pillar erected by the Maurya emperor Ashoka at Sarnath, near Varanasi, around 250 BC. Four lions stand back to back above a drum carved with animals and wheels, all cut from a single block of highly polished sandstone. Excavated in 1905, it is a masterpiece of Maurya sculpture and has been the State Emblem of India since 1950.

Sarnath and the first sermon

Sarnath, a few kilometres north of Varanasi, was the site of an ancient deer park. According to Buddhist tradition, it was here that the Buddha, after his enlightenment, gave his first sermon to five former companions. This event is known as “setting in motion the wheel of the dharma”, and Sarnath became one of the four most sacred sites of Buddhism.

The Maurya emperor Ashoka (reigned c. 268–232 BC), who became a devoted Buddhist after the Kalinga War, visited many such holy places. At Sarnath he erected a tall polished pillar to mark the site, as he did at several other places connected with the Buddha.

The pillar and its capital

Ashoka’s pillars were monolithic shafts of fine-grained sandstone, mostly quarried at Chunar near Varanasi, and polished to a glossy, almost metallic finish. They stood without a base and were crowned by separately carved capitals, joined by a copper dowel.

The Sarnath capital is about 2.15 metres (7 feet) high. It has three main parts:

• The bell: an inverted lotus flower with stylised petals, forming the base of the capital.
• The abacus: a round drum carved with four animals, an elephant, a bull, a horse and a lion, walking in procession and separated by four spoked wheels.
• The lions: four seated Asiatic lions, back to back, facing the four cardinal directions, their mouths open as if roaring.

Fragments show that the lions originally supported a large stone wheel, a dharmachakra or wheel of the law, with 32 spokes. Only pieces of this wheel survive.

The pillar also carries an inscription of Ashoka, often called the schism edict. It warns that monks or nuns who try to divide the Buddhist community should be expelled. Later inscriptions from the Kushan and Gupta periods were added to the shaft.

Other Ashokan pillars

The Sarnath pillar was one of a series. Around twenty Ashokan pillars or substantial fragments are known, mainly in the Ganges plain of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and a few still stand to their full height. Their capitals show different animals: a single seated lion at Vaishali and Lauriya Nandangarh, a bull at Rampurva and four lions at Sanchi, closely related to the Sarnath design.

The Rampurva bull capital is now displayed at Rashtrapati Bhavan, the presidential residence in New Delhi. Comparison between the capitals suggests that the Sarnath example, with its crisp carving and lively animals, represents Maurya sculpture at its most refined.

The craftsmanship has impressed engineers as well as art historians. Shaping and polishing such large blocks of hard sandstone, and transporting shafts of 12 metres or more over long distances, required considerable skill and organisation. The polish was so bright that early European visitors sometimes thought the pillars were made of metal.

Meaning and symbolism

The lion was a royal symbol in ancient India and also a symbol of the Buddha, who was called Shakyasimha, “lion of the Shakya clan”. His teaching was compared to a lion’s roar, spreading in all directions, which may be what the four outward-facing lions express.

The wheels on the abacus and the great wheel above recall the “turning of the wheel” at Sarnath. The four animals are harder to interpret. Some scholars link them to the four directions, others to events in the Buddha’s life, such as his mother’s dream of a white elephant and his birth under the sign of the bull, though such readings remain uncertain.

Art historians have long noted similarities between Ashoka’s capitals and the art of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, especially the polished stone and the bell-shaped form. How far this reflects direct Persian influence, and how far a developing Indian tradition, is still discussed.

Excavation in 1905

After Buddhism declined in northern India, Sarnath was abandoned and its monuments decayed. In the winter of 1904–1905, excavations directed by the engineer Friedrich Oertel for the Archaeological Survey of India uncovered the base of the pillar near the remains of the main shrine. The lion capital was found close by, broken from the shaft but remarkably well preserved.

John Marshall, director-general of the Archaeological Survey, published the finds. A site museum was opened at Sarnath in 1910 to house the capital and other sculptures, making it one of the first site museums in India. The broken lower shaft of the pillar remains in place, protected by a railing.

The excavations at Sarnath in these years also revealed the foundations of shrines and monasteries spanning more than a thousand years, along with many sculptures. Among them was a celebrated seated Buddha of the Gupta period, shown teaching, which is now displayed in the same museum as the lion capital.

Becoming India’s emblem

As independence approached, India’s leaders looked for symbols that were ancient, unifying and not tied to a single religious community. The wheel from Ashoka’s pillars, the Ashoka Chakra, with 24 spokes, was placed at the centre of the national flag adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 22 July 1947.

On 26 January 1950, the day the Constitution came into force, the Government of India adopted a version of the Sarnath capital as the State Emblem. In this flat, side-on design, three lions are visible, the fourth being hidden behind. The wheel appears in the centre of the abacus, with a bull on one side and a horse on the other, and the lotus bell is omitted.

Below the emblem is the motto Satyameva Jayate, “Truth alone triumphs”, taken from the Mundaka Upanishad and written in Devanagari script. Use of the emblem is regulated by the State Emblem of India (Prohibition of Improper Use) Act of 2005. It appears on currency notes, passports, government documents and official seals.

Myths and facts

It is sometimes said that the emblem shows only three lions. In fact the original capital has four, and the emblem simply shows the side view. Similarly, the 24-spoke wheel on the national flag does not copy the large crowning wheel, which had 32 spokes; it follows the smaller wheels carved on the abacus.

Timeline

• Late 6th or 5th century BC: According to tradition, the Buddha gives his first sermon at Sarnath.
• c. 250 BC: Ashoka erects the pillar and lion capital at Sarnath.
• c. 1st–5th centuries AD: Further inscriptions are added under the Kushans and Guptas.
• 1904–1905: Friedrich Oertel excavates the pillar and capital.
• 1910: The Sarnath site museum opens.
• 22 July 1947: The national flag with the Ashoka Chakra is adopted.
• 26 January 1950: The capital is adopted as the State Emblem of India.
• 2005: A law regulates the use of the State Emblem.

Why it matters

The Lion Capital of Ashoka is one of the finest works of ancient Indian sculpture and a key monument of the Maurya age. By adopting it as their emblem, the founders of modern India linked the new republic to Ashoka’s ideals of moral government, as expressed in the Edicts of Ashoka, making a 2,250-year-old carving a symbol seen by millions every day.