Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c12.s2.23

c12.s2.23

The round railing consisting of 80 upright pillars in all was divided into four quadrants and having four high gateways, *Mahā-toraṇa*, each facing a cardinal point. This was planned in accordance with a religious principle in which cosmic manifestation was conceived as a gigantic *svastika* formed by the four directions of space and known as *Diśāvrata*. This doctrine had come into existence in the Vedic period and persisted as a popular cult in which the worship of the four Mahārājika Devas was a cardinal theme as found in the planning of the Bharhut railings. At no stage in the history of the Stūpa the latter could divest itself of this basic religious belief of its fourfold division.