What features are depicted on following GATEWAYS to the great stupa at SANCHI:?
The Great Stupa is 120 feet across (36.6 meters) and, excluding the railing and umbrella, is 54 feet high (16.46 meters). Stupas may be made of brick, brick and rubble, or encased in masonry. The present stupa encases an earlier one of about half its present dimensions. The earlier one, built of large burnt bricks and mud, has been attributed to the Emperor Ashoka, the main reasons being that the level of its floor is the same, and that the bricks used in it resemble those in other Ashokan structures. The four gateways, or toranas, are the finest works of art at Sanchi and are among the finest examples of Buddhist art in India. The gateways were erected c. 35 BCE. The scenes carved into the pillars and their triple architraves are of episodes in the various lives of the Buddha. The balustrades of the ground-level fence consist of a series of octagonal uprights with lenticular crossbars mortised into them and crowned by enormous copings rounded at the top. The outer faces of the upright
