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History Optional PYQ Master Pack · Model answer

Write brief essay on Similarities and differences between the Maurya columns and Achaemenian pillars.

  • UPSC 1993
  • Mauryan Empire

The free-standing stone columns Ashoka raised across the Mauryan realm are the earliest large-scale monumental stone art of historical India. Their sudden appearance — after a stone-carving hiatus of roughly a millennium since the Harappan cities — has long invited comparison with the pillared halls of Achaemenid Persepolis.

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  • Points of Convergence
  • Points of Divergence
  • The Influence Debate

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