30. Rail, No. 2 Tope, Sanchi.
(From a Drawing by Colonel Maisey.)
The next stage in rail design is exemplified in that of No. 2 Tope, Sanchi ([Woodcut No. 30]); there circular discs are added in the centre of each pillar, and semicircular plates at top and bottom. In carpentry the circular ones would represent a great nail meant to keep the centre bar in its place; the half discs, top and bottom, metal plates to strengthen the junctions—and this it seems most probably may really have been the origin of these forms.
31. Representation of Rail.
(From a Bas-relief at Amravati.)
If from this we attempt to follow the progress made in the ornamentation of these rails, it seems to have been arrived at by placing a circular disc in each of the intermediate rails, as shown in the woodcut (No. 31), copied from a representation of the outer face of the Amravati rail, carved upon it. In the actual rail the pillars are proportionally taller and the spaces somewhat wider, but in all other respects it is the same—it has the same zöophorus below, and the same conventional figures bearing a roll above, both which features are met with almost everywhere.
32. Rail in Gautamiputra Cave, Nassick.
A fourth stage was reached in that shown in the next woodcut (No. [32]), from a representation of a rail in the Gautamiputra cave at Nassick, A.D. 312 to 333, where there are three full discs on the pillars as well as on the rails, and no doubt other variations may yet be found; but these are sufficient to show how the discs were multiplied till the pillars almost become evanescent quantities in the composition.