Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c11.123

c11.123

We find that the tradition of these six components of Sarnath Lion capital was of great antiquity handed down from the Vedic period. The tall shaft is the *Stambha*, a Vedic pillar considered to be the support of the world, abode of all the gods, raised aloft by the Creator as the World Axis (*Axis Mundi*, *Yasmin stabdhvā Prajāpatir lokānt sarvān adhārayat, Sakmbhaṁ tam brūhi*, AV. 10. 7. 7). The *Yūpa* in the *Yajña* was the type of that pillar and so also the *Sthūṇa* in the burial mound. From the conception of the *Skambha* (Pillar) as identical with Brahman or Prajāpati we find an expansion of idea to the *Yūpa* of the *Yajña*, and to the *Śmaśāna Yūpa* or *Chaitya Yūpa*, all of them leading to a universal cult of pillar worship regarding the *Skambha* as a deity. The pillar at Lauriā Nandangarh is still worshipped as *Laur Bābā* and the one at Besnagar *Khām Bābā*. For about three thousand years