Studies in Indian Art c11.s1.71

c11.s1.71

in breadth, with a thickness of 6"; in all 228 cross-bars). There were sixteen pillars in each quarter portion of the railing with four additional pillars in the return-screen in front of each gateway. The tall pillars of each gateway rose to a height of 9' 7½"; those on the east and west sides were comprised of four octagonal shafts standing together, while those on the north and south gatways square in form. These pillars supported an imposing superstructure of three parallel architraves separated from each other by square stone blocks, and the horizontal space between each pair of carved beams was filled by smaller pillars. A particular feature of the *Torana* beams at Bharhut consists in the open-mouthed crocodile figures with curved tails occupying the projecting ends. It was on the account that the *Torana* itself received the name *Śiṃśumāra Śiraḥ*, as given in the Mahābhārata (Ādi Parva I, 176.15; see my articles, *Śiṃśumāra Śiraḥ*, J.I.S.O.A, 1939; Mahābhārata Notes, A.B.O.I. Vol. XXVI, pts, III-IV, pp. 283-86). The topmost architrave was surmounted by a conspicuous Dharmachakra supported on a base of honey-suckle design and this was on the two sides at the uppermost height of the vertical pillars flanked by two smaller *triratna* symbols. Cunningham was able to restore these pinnacle symbols from existing fragments. The detailed architectural scheme has been described by Cunningham and discussed by Barua. Cunningham found 49 pillars of the original railing, 35 on the spot and 12 from the neighbouring villages of Batanmara and Pataora and 16 out of 40 coping stones. Pt. Brij Mohan Vyās has added to the collection of the Allahabad Municipal Museum 44 pieces from the Bharhut Torana Vedikā. "They included 32 pillars, 1 corner pillar with a front and side face, 3 cross-bars, 14 coping stones, 1 fragment of a capital, 2 other blocks and a stair-way.¹