Studies in Indian Art c11.s2.8

c11.s2.8

Some specialised investigation is needed to arrive at the exact significance of the two words in earlier and later literatures. But it appears that the distinction in their meaning was later on missed and the two began to be treated as synonyms. In the compound phrase *prākāra-vapra*, *Vapra* seems to resemble the spiral attachment and *prākāra* the cubical block portion of the heavy *kuṇḍalas* familiar to us in the sculptures of the Maurya and Sunga periods.