Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c9.13

c9.13

PILLARS—The Śatapatha states that the Gṛihapatis residing in *Kāmyaka Vana* were using *Ayasthūṇa* pillars which seems to be a reference to wooden pillars covered with beaten sheet of copper (ŚB. 11.4.2.17). The lofty wooden pillar was the most outstanding feature of construction. It was reproduced in the big stone pillars of Aśoka and the front pillars of Chaitya-halls in Western India. The big vaulted roofs with massive wooden ribs indicate the size of the pillars which supported them. A Jātaka story tells of a village of carpenters loading their manufactured articles on boats in the Gaṅgā and sailing upstream to market them. Pāṇini actually refers in a Gaṇa (V. 1. 51) to merchants who were transporting their loads of wooden pillars (*Sthūṇā-bhāra*) and hence known as *Sthauṇa-bhārika*, and also stone goods called *aśma-bhāra*. That the spoken language required such a term is in itself proof of this specialised industry.