liberation, or Nirvāna, which was the goal of existence; the altar upon which the Devas were seated was the Tusitā heavens.
This symbolism is so characteristically Indian, and so widely diffused in early Buddhist art, that the mere coincidence of "bell-shaped" capitals occurring in Persia hardly justifies the name which archæologists have given them. Perhaps Persia borrowed the idea from India, the land of the lotus, together with the flower itself. But it is much more probable that it was evolved by the carvers of the sacrificial posts in Vedic times, when the Aryans occupied the valley of the Euphrates, and were in contact with Egypt and Assyria and with their relatives in Iran. Certainly the Apadāna of Persepolis was not an original creation, but, as M. E. Blochet says, "a compromise between the oldest works of Assyrian art and the most grandiose specimens of Greek architecture." Were it not that the palaces of the Aryan kings in Mesopotamia were built of sacrificial wood, we might yet discover there the prototype of the Persepolitan pillar.
The lotus-and-vase pillar, besides being one of the most ancient of Indian architectural orders, is also the most frequently used. It is found at all periods. It was adopted by the Græco-Roman builders of Gandhara as well as by the craftsmen of Muhammadan India. The Hindu master-builder of the present day continues to use it. This persistent survival is specially significant when it is seen that the most distinctive marks of Hellenistic craftsmanship, the honeysuckle pattern, the acanthus leaf and Corinthian capital which occur so frequently in Mauryan and Kushān times, did not survive in India for more than a few generations. These did not belong to the ritual of Buddhist craftsmanship, and were quickly discarded as meaning
