Chunar stone or Red-spotted sandstone is a kind of reddish or buff-colored, finely grained, hard
sandstone
Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...
quarried in the
Chunar
Chunar is a city located in Mirzapur district of Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is nearby Mirzapur city. The railway tracks passing through Chunar Junction railway station leads to major destinations of India, including Howrah, Delhi, Ta ...
in the
Mirzapur District
Mirzapur district is one of the 75 districts in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The district is bounded on the north by Bhadohi and Varanasi districts, on the east by Chandauli district, on the south by Sonbhadra district and Rewa dist ...
of
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh ( ; UP) is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. With over 241 million inhabitants, it is the List of states and union territories of India by population, most populated state in In ...
, and widely used in the architecture of
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
.
[Mahajan V.D. (1960, reprint 2007). ''Ancient India'', New Delhi: S.Chand, New Delhi, , p.349]
Background
Notable buildings and monuments carved from chunar stone include:
*
Pillars of Ashoka
The pillars of Ashoka are a series of Monolith, monolithic columns dispersed throughout the Indian subcontinent, erected—or at least inscribed with Edicts of Ashoka, edicts—by the 3rd Mauryan Emperor Ashoka the Great, who reigned from to ...
.
[Thapar, Romila (2001). '' and the Decline of the Mauryan'', New Delhi: Oxford University Press, , pp.267-70]
*
St. Paul's Cathedral, Kolkata.
References
{{Reflist
Building stone