Eclectic East: Fused Styles

Greek artistic motifs are easily discerned in monumental Mauryan sculpture from the mid-third-century B.C. The relief on the plinth of an Ashokan Pillar from Sankisa, in Uttar Pradesh, bears a striking resemblance to a fourth-century B.C. palmette-lotus-rosette relief from the Polyandron cemetery in Athens.

A magnificently carved humped bull surmounting an Ashokan Pillar from Rampurva, in northern Bihar, has the naturalistic rendering of Greek statuary. The bull stands on a plinth decorated with an anthemion motif (that is, having a lotus-and-palmette design) that mirrors a relief from the fifth-century B.C. Erechtheum on the Acropolis in Athens.