It was the first imperial art in India. It represented an important transition in Indian art from use of wood to stone. It is also notable for a refinement in pottery. It can be divided into two sections.

Court Art-Represented by Pillars and their Capitals

Popular Art -Represented by caves, stupas, sculptures and terracotta figurines. The architectural aspects can be seen from the ruins of Patliputra and the stupas.

Since most of the buildings at Patliputra had been built in wood hardly any thing remains today. Megasthense described that it had 640 towers and 64 gates.

Stupas

The Ashokan period marked the beginning of the Buddhist School of architecture in India. Ashoka was responsible for the construction of several stupas, which were large halls, capped with domes and bore symbols of the Buddha. The most important ones are located at Bharhut, Bodhgaya, Sanchi, Amravati and Nagarjunakonda. The Buddhist shrines or the monasteries were built in somewhat irregular designs following the Gandhara style of architecture.

Pillars

The high skill of engineering and art of polishing can be seen in the Pillars. The pillars are generally divided into four parts-

• Crowning Animal - Seated/standing, always a single piece with the abacus.
• Abacus - Square and plain in the earlier pillars, circular and decorated in the later ones.
• Capital - Bell shaped of lotus petals joined with shaft by a copper bolt.
• Shaft - Always plain and smooth, circular and slightly tapering upwards, chiselled out of one single piece of stone.
• The Lauriya Nandangarh Pillar is the most outstanding of all the pillars. Their capitals mainly consist of animal figures like Bull, Lion, Elephant etc. The Pillars were built of Chunar Sandstone.
• The most famous capital is that of Sarnath where the four lions are sitting in four different directions. The Sarnath lion capital is used as the national symbol which can be seen on Indian currencies and documents.
• The Sanchi lion capital though similar to Sarnath is comparatively inferior.
• The Mauryan art had Achaemenian (lranian) and Hellenistic (Greek) influences. The chief centers of production were Taxila and Sarnath. They used Chunar sandstone.

Caves

The caves were cut out of hard and refractory rocks . Their interior walls are so well polished that they shine like mirrors .Ashoka and his grandson Dasaratha got several such cave dwellings built . A lot of such caves are found on the Nagarjuna hills and the Barabar hills near gaya .One of the caves in the barabar hills called the sudama caves was dedicated to the monks of Ajivika sect by ashoka .

Sculpture

The sculptural zenith can be seen in the Parkham Yaksha and Didargang Yakshni (Kept in the Mathura Museum and Patna Museum respectively). The elephant sculpture at Dhauli is another landmark of Mauryan sculpture. The elephant at Dhauli represents Ashoka Piyadassi addressing to the people of Kalinga.

The terracotta figurines of Mauryan Age have been found in north India from Taxila to Patliputra. Mother Goddess is depicted in a large no. of terracotta.