Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c7.s6.8

c7.s6.8

Its true nature as the sacred banner of a deity is revealed by a scene depicted on Kulli ware even earlier than Mohenjo-daro: A Brahmani bull with wiesprad horns is standing before a pillar and fastened to it by a triple cord. The pillar consists of a shaft in its lower half portion, a bulbous pot above it having a circular ball-like object with twelve spokes in the middle, and on the summit a four-corned rectangular frame. These component parts have a very close parallel with the representations of the pillar on the Unicorn seals. (Stuart Piggot, *Pre-historic India*, fig. 7 facing p. 102). In another example illustrated in the same figure the humpped bull is secured to a *śūla* or spear. This has all the elements of a Śaiva pillar and on this analogy the pillar on the Unicorn seals of slightly later date appears to be but a Rudra-Siva *Stambha*. The *Dhvaja-stambha* of Buddhism and Jainism were in the same tradition and in fact Buddha himself in *Divyāvadāna* explains the Yūpa as a *Dharma chinha* reminding the rulers and the people of their duty (Cowell, p. 59).