Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Pillars of Ashoka" in English language version.
It can also be suggested that Lāțs topped by animal figures also have an ancestor in the sphinx - topped pillars of Greece of the Middle Archaic period (c.580-40 B.C), Delphi Museum at Delphi, Greece, has an elegant winged sphinx figure sitting on an Ionic capital with side volutes. It was the Naxian sphinx pillar datable to about 575-560 BC. Many more sphinx-pillars have been found from different parts of Greece like Sparta, Athens and Spata (Attica). Rowland traces western Asiatic inspirations in the addorsed animal capitals of Aśokas Lāțs. But the inspiration for the single animal figure Lāțs, should be traced in the sphinx pillars of Greece. Asoka's direct link with his contemporaneous Greek states of Western Asia , Africa and Greece itself can result in the conception of single animal topped Lățs , from the Delphi type sphinx pillars. Such a possibility should not be ruled out in Mauryan Age.
