Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c12.s14.8

c12.s14.8

That this was indeed the case is fully borne out by early Buddhist and Jaina texts and supported by early Buddhist reliefs that reveal the flourishing existence, particularly in eastern India, of a primitive religion that indulged in the worship of such symbols as the Chaitya which was either a holy tree or groves of trees (*rukkhacetiya*, *vanacetiya*, *ārāmacetiya* etc.), and not infrequently these trees were the abodes of gods or spirits known as *Vṛkṣadevatās*, *Yakṣas* etc. Another important symbol that received worship was the stūpa, a hemispherical tumulus, either votive or dedicatory or commemorative. All such objects and places of primitive worship were enclosed for protection with railings which must have given the people some scope for the play of their artistic and decorative instincts.¹ A third object that also seems to have been an important element in the primitive religion of middle and eastern India was the animal standard—the *dhvajastambha* of later Indian literature,—i.e. posts or pillars crowned by animals considered sacred and worshipped by primitive peoples. This trait of primitive religion was not particularly characteristic of India, but was equally potent in Babylonia and Assyria as well as in ancient Greece. Later Brahmanical mythology knows of such standards or *stambhas* of at least three different animal gods, namely the Garuḍa, the Vṛisha and the Makara, the *vāhanas* of Vishnu, Śiva and Gaṅgā (also Kandarpa) respectively. Sometimes the animal was replaced by certain trees considered sacred, the *Kalpadruma* or the wishing tree and the palm-tree represented by its crowning cluster of leaves. It was evidently from such early specimens of primitive animal standards made of impermanent materials like wood and bamboo that Aśoka derived the inspiration of erecting monumental pillars crowned by sacred animals².