The pillars of Ashoka are a series of columns dispersed throughout the Indian subcontinent, erected or at least inscribed with edicts by the Mauryan king Ashoka during his reign in the 3rd century BC. Originally, there must have been many pillars but only nineteen survive with inscriptions, and only six with animal capitals, which were a target for Muslim iconoclasm. Many are preserved in a fragmentary state. Averaging between in height, and weighing up to 50 tons each, the pillars were dragged, sometimes hundreds of miles, to where they were erected.