The Development of Hindu Iconography c10.72

c10.72

³ For Vedic sthūna cf. R.V., X. 18, 13. For the Yūpastambhas, refer to Mahābhārata, III, 198, V. 10; I, 94, V. 28-29; Raghuvamśa, VI, 38; Isapur stone yūpa with a Brāhmī inscription of the time of Vāshiska, the successor of Kanishka, in the year 24 of the Kushan era, J. Ph. Vögel, op. cit., p. 189; three stone Yūpas discovered at Badva in the old Kotah State (Rajputana) of the Kṛta year 295, E.I., XXIII, pp. 42 ff. and pls; the Bijaygaḍh sacrificial post (yūpa) with an inscription of the Kṛta year 428, Fleet, C.I.I., III, p. 253. Reference may also be made to the Aśokan columns; they are really Sāsanastambhas (cf. the word Sāsanastambha used in the Motupalli pillar inscription of Gaṇapatideva, E.I., XII, pp. 195-97), but are described as ‘Śilāthambhas’ in the edicts; it is interesting to note that Aśoka indirectly refers to the existing custom of erecting free standing stone pillars in India, cf. Rupnath Rock edict, lines 4-5. The erection of Indra-dhvajas, usually wooden ones, specially associated with royalty, is frequently referred to in the epic and purāṇic literature; the Bṛhatsaṃhitā devotes a big chapter to Indradhvaja (Dvivedi's Edition, Ch. 42).