Indian Architecture (Buddhist and Hindu Periods) c11.8

c11.8

Such a marked increase in the dimensions of the Sanchi stupa led to much of the old work surrounding the Asokan original being swept away, including the wooden palisade which enclosed the processional path This timber structure was now replaced by a plain stone railing of massive proportions, standing eleven feet high and with an entrance at each of the cardinal points. No feature of Buddhist art or architecture is more characteristic than this railing It was the emblem of protection dating from the Vedic times and even earlier. It encircled the village sanctuary, it fenced around the sacred Bodh tree, and in miniature it was adapted as a casket to enshrine the holy relics, besides serving many other purposes, religious or secular, structural and decorative. The railing at Sanchi on account of the largeness of its proportions and austerity of its treatment is one of the most impressive productions in the whole range of Buddhist constructional art. Its uprights consist of octagonal posts nine feet high from the ground-level and placed at the close interval of two feet between each. Connecting these posts are three horizontal rails or bars, each two feet wide and separated only by a narrow space of three and a quarter inches Over all was placed an immense beam, its upper side rounded, forming a coping stone to the whole. For a ponderous structure of this nature there was no real necessity, a much smaller and finer form of barrier would have been equally effective and in accordance with the dimensions of the remainder of the scheme. It seems to represent the result of some backward vision connecting it with an earlier phase of evolution when man delighted in the raising of great stones—the megalithic age—as may be seen in such monumental productions as Stonehenge in England and Zimbabwe in Rhodesia, and in the monoliths of the Khasis, in Assam All these rear up their stupendous members with the object of causing amazement, awe, and for the purpose of wonder-working And as distinctive as were the proportions of the Sanchi railing was its method of construction. Although all the various parts are fashioned out of stone, each is a copy, in many respects, of the wooden original it is presumed to have replaced. The shapes and more particularly the joints of the railings are those usually employed by carpenters, as may be seen in the tenons of the uprights (*thaba*), and the scarf jointings of the copings (*ushnisha*), neither of which are methods appropriate for stone bonding. There is also the peculiar form of the triple cross-bars (*suchi*), the lenticular section of which was obviously derived from the bamboo rails of the village stockade. It is evident therefore that these typically early Buddhist structures were produced at a very formative stage, a phase not so much in the evolution of the craft itself, as in that of the craftsman who made them, at a time when his mind was still thinking in wood, although his hands were working in stone. This workman had also not realized the separate properties of these two different building materials, and had yet to learn that things can be done with one that are not always suitable in the other.