Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c14.8

c14.8

The most important of the monuments at Taxila is the Dharmarājikā Stūpa or Chīr Tope so-called from the cleft driven through it. The main structure is circular at the base with a raised terrace, which was ascended by four flights of steps on the four sides. The core of the Stūpa is of rough rubble masonry with radiating walls three to five feet in thickness which were added during Kushāṇa times. The outer facing of the Stūpa is made of big limestone blocks (aśmaśilā) with chiselled kañjūr stone let in between them for the mouldings and pilasters. The whole was at one time finished with a thick coating of lime plaster. The face of the Stūpa above the berm was covered with ornamental stone carving distinguished by the boldness of its mouldings and the design of the niches which are framed aternately with trefoil arches and portals with sloping jambs, and separated from one another by Corinthian pilasters. The niches once had figures of the Buddha or of the Bodhisattvas in relief. The original Dharmarājikā Stūpa was first erected in the reign of Aśoka, then enlarged as a Maheśākhya Stūpa in the time of the Śaka kings and finally finished of with kañjūr stones probably in the fifth century. The raised terrace around the foot of the Stūpa once served as a pradakṣiṇāpatha which was laid in three layers; the uppermost one composed of slabs af dark grey stone; the second one immediately below the first of glass tiles and below it a chūnam floor, below which was a pavement of river sand mixed with lime, which was adorned in a curious fashion with shell bangles embedded in the plaster and arranged in different geometrical designs, some of the bangles being whole, others cut in halves or in quarters.