The Indian Lion-Pillar at Sarnath is the finest and the most famous of all the examples of Mauryan art. Discovered in 1905, this consists of a shaft made of a single piece of block of black spotted buff-colored sandstone that supports a capital made of another single piece of stone. The inscribed stump of the Ashokan column, presently of a height of only 2.03 m, was originally 15.25 m high, and it was surmounted by the famous Lion-capital with a crowning dharmachakra fitted above the heads of the four lions, on a contrivance into a groove in the centre. The portion of the pillar embedded in the ground in rough rests on a large flat stone, 20.3 x 15.2 x 45.7 cm. The pillar bears three inscriptions. The first, an edict of Ashoka in Brahmi characters refers to the emperor giving a warning to the monks and nuns against creating schism. The second is of the Kushana period and refers to the 4O” year of Ashvaghosha. The third inscription, an early Gupta script, mentions the teacher of the Sammitiya sect and the Vastiputraka School.