Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/145

 CHAP. IV. RAIL AT SANCHI. prophets, and that their art did not differ materially from that of the latter. 1

tftlfVta.tlfl.fJ: ' ''_ J J J SANCHI-KANAKHEDA. Though the rails surrounding the topes at Sanchi are not, in themselves, so interesting as those at Bodh-Gaya and Bharaut, still they are useful in exhibiting the various steps by which the modes of decorating rails were arrived at, and the torans or gateways of the great rail are quite unequalled by any other examples known to exist in India. The rail that surrounds the great tope may be described as a circular enclosure 140 ft. in diameter, but not quite regular, being oval on one side, to admit of the ramp or stairs leading to the berm or procession - path surrounding the monument. As will be seen from the annexed woodcut (No. 34), it consists of octagonal pillars 8 34 ft. in height, and spaced 2 ft. apart. These are joined to- gether at the top by a rail 2 ft. 3 in. deep, held in its position by a tenon cut on the top of the pillars, as at Stonehenge ; between the pillars are three intermediate rails, which are slipped into lens - shaped holes, on either side, the whole showing how essentially wooden the construction is. The pillars, for instance, could not have been put up first, and the rails added afterwards. They must have been inserted into the right or left hand posts, and supported while the next pillar was pushed laterally, so as to take their ends, and when the top rail was shut down the whole became mortised together as a piece of carpentry, but not as any stone - work was done either before or afterwards. The rail of the No. 2 Stupa at Sanchi is of special interest as being more ornamented with sculptures which, with many of the inscriptions, appear to belong to a period distinctly antecedent to those of the gateways of the great stupa (Woodcut No. 35); there circular discs are added in the centre of each pillar, Rail at Sanchi. (From a Drawing by Gen. Cunningham.) 1 Biihler, ' Legend of the Jaina Stupa at Mathura ' ; and ' Epigraphia Indica,' vol. ii. pp. 311 et seqq. and plates; see also the curious tale about Kanishka and a Jaina stupa that he worshipped by mistake. 'Journal Asiatique,' JX e ser. tome viii. ( 1896), pp. 458ff. Conf. Arite, p. 54, note I.
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