The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c12.35

c12.35

Plate IX, D, shows the Asokan prototype of the twelvepillared mandapam (*baradari*), used as a shrine for the sacred tree. The three doorways in each side of it could have been used in the same way, the inner circuit being reserved for the elect of the order and the outer one for laymen. Some Buddhist stûpas are provided with a double rail round the pradakshinâ path for the same purpose. In Brahmanical shrines, also, the impure low castes could thus be separated from the twice-born. The ritualistic significance which attached itself to this combination of doorways was, no doubt, the reason why it persisted with a symbolical meaning only, when the original practical purpose had ceased to exist, as it does in modern Bengali temples.