The full form of Persian column seems only to have been used at a few sites outside Persia around the empire in the Achaemenid period, in Armenia and even Levantine colonies in Iberia. The columns influenced the Pillars of Ashoka erected in India some 80 years after Alexander the Great destroyed the Persian Empire, and other imperial buildings in the architecture of the Maurya Empire. The much smaller Mathura lion capital of around the year 0 shows clear influence. They can be seen in relief decoration around Buddhist stupas in Gandhara in the 2nd or 3rd century CE. The style did not develop in Persia itself, but elements continued to appear under later dynasties before the arrival of Islam.