Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor by Charles R. Allen

Author:Charles R. Allen [Allen, Charles R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408703885
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Published: 2015-07-06T16:00:00+00:00

Part of the fallen South Gateway of the Great Tope at Sanchi, with the brick stupa and surrounding railing in the background, and sections of architrave in the foreground. A photograph taken in 1861 by James Waterhouse. (APAC, British Library) (Overleaf) Part of the relief shown on the inner side of the middle architrave, showing a king in his chariot proceeding towards a stupa. A photograph (with cracked glass plate) taken by Raja Deen Dayal in 1881. (APAC, British Library)

Cunningham’s descriptions of the scenes depicted on the scattered pillars and architraves of the South Gateway were no more than cursory. He merely noted that one of the extended panoramas depicted a king riding in a chariot approaching a stupa, and on the other side of the stupa the same king appearing to bow before it while a number of Naga snake kings looked on approvingly. Major Franklin had drawn this scene back in 1820 (see p. 108) and Captain Murray in 1837 for James Prinsep to reproduce in the JASB (see p. 159). Like them, Cunningham missed the significance of what was portrayed here – and on two other scenes shown on the same gateway’s cross-beams, both showing a huge elephant whose mahout, or driver, bears a relic casket on his head.

It was left to Fred Maisey to make drawings of these and other scenes from the South Gateway, the full significance of which would only be understood some seventy years later. One of these scenes would prove to be of crucial importance. It comes from a side panel of one of the gateway’s supporting pillars and shows the Bodhi tree at Bodhgaya and the Diamond Throne at its base set within the pavilion-like structure and surrounding wall built for it by King Ashoka. Immediately below it are six figures facing outwards, a king in the centre, indicated by the royal umbrella, and five women. The king appears to be supported by the two women on either side of him.

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