These two fragments of a copestone, and several additional sections in the National Museum, New Delhi, Museum of Asian Art, Berlin (10092), and the Cleveland Museum of Art (2011.145), originally functioned as a top structural element of a railing (vedika) around a Buddhist or Jain funerary monument (stupa) in the Mathura region. See M.85.62, M.85.224.5, and a complete section of a comparable Mathura stupa railing in the Cleveland Museum of Art (1943.71). The decoration consists of a recessed frieze of animals (three lionesses and one ram) alternating with a honeysuckle motif. Above the frieze is a row of alternating bells and buds suspended from an astragal molding. Copestone b has an incomplete Prakrit inscription written in the Brahmi script. The complete inscription and translation have been published by Herbert Härtel. It reads, Caused to be made by Kashiputra Yashaka, the confidant of King Suryamitra, the son of Gopali. (Herbert Härtel, “Eine Mathura-Inschrift der vor-Kusana-zeit,” in Beiträge zur Indienforschung (Berlin: Museum für Indische Kunst, 1977).
