The stability of an embankment over purely cohesive material has often been treated as a problem of stability analysis of embankment slope as well as bearing capacity problem of the foundation soil. Therefore, both slope stability and bearing capacity factors should be used to assess the stability of the embankment. Under plane strain condition, the current study performs the stability analysis of embankment of cohesive-frictional material placed over purely anisotropic cohesive stratum (foundation soil) subjected to surcharge loading. By changing the undrained strength with respect to the direction of the major principal stress, the anisotropic behavior in purely cohesive stratum has been considered. For a given width and height of embankment, rigorous upper and lower bound finite element limit analysis technique have been implemented to obtain the ultimate surcharge loading. For ease of use, the results have been displayed in the form of non-dimensional stability charts, incorporating the actual surcharge loads closely bracketed from above and below. The influence of internal frictional angle of embankment soil, anisotropic parameters of foundation soil and ratio of shear strength and unit weight of two soil on the non-dimensional stability factor has been investigated and demonstrated in this study. Further, the different modes of failure of embankment placed over anisotropic clay has also been illustrated by presenting zone of shear dissipation i.e., plastic failure zone. It has been observed that embankment fails by rotational failure (i.e., embankment slope failure) corresponding to a relatively weaker embankment soil rest over stronger foundation clay; whereas, the mode of embankment failure was bearing capacity failure corresponding to a relatively stronger embankment soil rest over weaker foundation clay, which further depends upon the anisotropic parameters.