Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c12.s2.25

c12.s2.25

The upright pillars, cross-bars and copings of the Bharhut railings were elaborately carved with numerous scenes in bas-relief, some of them of Buddhist inspiration but others mostly from folk beliefs and well known decorative repertoire of early Indian art. Each series of two pillars held between it three cross-bars, and bonded at the top by coping stones (*Uṣṇīṣa*; Pāli : *Unhīsa*). The coping, or continuous architrave, which crowned the circle of pillars, is formed of massive blocks of stone each spanning two intercolumnniations. The blocks are upwards of 7 ft in length, with a height of 1 ft 10½ in. and a thickness of 1 ft 8 in. They are secured firmly to each other by long tenons fitting into corresponding mortices, and to the tops of the pillars by a stout tenon on each, which fits a socket on the underside of the coping stone. Each block is, of course, slightly curved to suit the circumference of the circle, and this curvature must have added considerably to the stability of the railing; for as each set of three tenons formed a triangle, each coping stone became an efficient tie to keep the three pillars on which it was set in their places. The entire length of the coping was 330 ft. including the returns, the whole of which was minutely and elaborately sculptured, both inside and outside. The inner face of the copings was carved over with the scenes of various Jātakas and of the flowers, fruits, necklaces, ear-rings and other personal ornaments and costly textiles, as well as many other things. On the outer face all the spaces marked off by the undulations are filled with repetitions of full-blown lotus flowers on account of which the railing received the name of padmvara-vedikā. This broad line of bas-reliefs is on both faces finished by two rich borders, the lower one consisting of a continuous row of bells (kinkiṇī-jāla) and the upper one of battlement motifs (kapiśīrshaka or prākāra-kaṇṭhaka). The carvings are bold and deep and still as sharp and perfect as when first set up. [Fig. 60].