Vogel states that the word salabhanjika is found neither in the Vedic literature nor in Pali literature and nor in the major Indian epics, but appears in Indian classical literature of early 1st-millennium CE such as Asvagosha's Buddhacarita (c. 100 CE). An older reference to the synonymous term salastri – woman shaped out of sala tree – is found in the Hindu text Natyashastra in verses 2.83–84. This may reflect that the literature followed the tradition and popularity of carving wooden statues. The term is also synonymous with terms madanika, putrilika, stambhaputri, stambhaputrika, and putrika. Prasanna Acharya – a Sanskrit scholar and the author of An Encyclopedia of Hindu Architecture, states that śālā and bhañjikā appear in verse 2.79 of the Natyashastra in the sense of "a wooden image".
