The Antiquities of Orissa v2.c17.s1.201.3

v2.c17.s1.201.3

No mention of this pillar occurs in the *History of Indian and Eastern Architecture*, but, adverting to the Yājapur specimen, its author says, ‘it deserves to be illustrated as one of the most pleasing examples of its class in India. Its proportions are beautiful, and its details in excellent taste ; but the mouldings of the base, which are those on which the Hindus are accustomed to lavish the utmost care, have unfortunately been destroyed’⁴⁰. He takes its date to be ‘the 12th or the 13th century’. The Sun Pillar was first figured by Mr. Stirling⁴¹. Dr. Hunter subsequently produced a well-executed and very faithful engraving of it in his excellent wok on Orissa⁴², and a photograph occurs in plate LII. Of the Yājapur pillar, Sir John Phear has published a faithful lithograph taken from a photograph,⁴³ and a woodcut occurs in Mr. Fergusson's *History of Indian and Eastern Architecture*,⁴⁴ and a glance at these figures will show that as a work of art the Sun Pillar is greatly superior to that at Yājapur. The one has still the Aśoka *lāṭ* for its model, while the other rises far above it in excellence of design and freedom of execution; and this would imply the latter to be later than the former. History, too, as far as its glimmering light can be accepted as a guide, is in favour of this conclusion. Yājapur rose to eminence and declined long before Koṇārak; and the pillar must therefore be accepted to have long preceded the years 1237 to 1282 A.