Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c12.s2.t1.26

c12.s2.t1.26

The lotus flowers with buds and leaves and creepers play an important part in the decoration of a Stūpa. A series of lotus medallions are depicted on the upright posts and cross-bars and the copings, owing to which the railing was given the name of *Padmavara-Vedikā*; but the idea behind the decoration was that of a mammoth garland of a thousand lotus flowers named *kiñjalkinī* with which the whole body of the Stūpa and of its railing was decorated as a mark of worship. This took the form of a grand ceremonious decoration in which much labour and money was spent which formed a real item in the ceremony of Stūpa worship and also in the worship of temples and images in later times.