The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c12.25

c12.25

time; but some of the figure sculpture which belongs to the Mahâyâna School must have been added several centuries later. The description given above of the structural chaitya-houses will make it easy to understand the planning of it (fig. 31). In front of the entrance were the traditional pair of Vishnu standards (*dhwaja-stambhas*), usually placed in front of stûpas of great sanctity or the temples of Buddhism, Jainism, and Brahmanism. Only the left one, a sixteen-sided pillar (Pl. XVII), is now standing, the place of the other one being covered by a later Dûrgâ shrine. It is interesting to notice that the symbolical tradition is still maintained in this comparatively modern Hindu building, for, as the Silpa-sâstras record,¹ the sixteensided pillar is technically known as *Rudra-kantha*—*i.e.* it is consecrated to Siva in Brahman hagiology, or *Dharma* in the equivalent Buddhist meaning; Dûrgâ being the *sakti* or female energy of Siva in his tâmasic aspect as Rudra. The modern shrine is therefore the correct symbol for the right-hand pillar,