Sankisa elephant capital
Topic: Early Indian Art and Architecture: Stupas, Rock-cut Caves, Temples · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Sankisa elephant capital is the elephant figure that once crowned an Ashokan pillar at Sankisa. The site is in Farrukhabad district, Uttar Pradesh. Buddhist tradition says the Buddha came down from heaven to earth at Sankisa, after teaching his mother there. Ashoka marked holy places like this with pillars. The elephant capital still stands at the site, under a shelter. It is a good example of how Ashoka's pillars used different animals as their crowning figure.
Example
At Sankisa, a carved elephant of the Mauryan period (c. 3rd century BCE) stands on its abacus, the flat base slab. Under the abacus is the inverted lotus bell of the capital.
Don't confuse with
- Sarnath lion capital: it has four lions, not an elephant, and it is now in a museum, not out at the site.