A History of Fine Art in India and Ceylon, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day c11.s3.6

c11.s3.6

The railing, by far the most magnificent known example of such structures, was 192 feet in diameter, about 600 in circumference, and stood 13 or 14 feet high above the pavement. It was constructed of upright slabs connected by three cross-bars between each pair of uprights, which stood upon a plinth and supported a coping about 2 feet 9 inches in height. On the outer face each upright was adorned with a full disk in the centre and a half-disk at top and bottom, minor sculptures filling the interspaces (Fig. 102). Similar but ever-varying disks decorated the cross-bars, and the coping was ornamented with a long wavy flower-roll carried by men, numerous figures being inserted in the open spaces (Fig. 103). The plinth exhibited a frieze of animals and boys, often in comic or ludicrous attitudes. The decorations on the inner face were even more elaborate; the coping presenting a continued series of bas-reliefs, and the central disks being filled with delicate sculptures, treating every topic of Buddhist legend. Thus every part of the structure, with a surface of about 16,800 square feet (600 × 2 × 14), was covered with sculptured reliefs.