Sanchi and the Stupa
This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. |
Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.
Sanchi
Ancient site in the Bhopal State, Central India, situated in 23 29' N. and 77 4$' E., 5-| miles from BhTlsa, on the Midland section of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway. The country between Sanchi and Bhilsa is famous as the site of the most extensive Buddhist remains now known in India, though, as Fergusson has pointed out, they may not have possessed the same importance in Buddhist times, and owe their survival to their situation in a remote and thinly-peopled- country.
The present village of Sanchi stands at the foot of a small flat-topped hill of sandstone rising 300 feet above the plain. On the centre of the level summit, and on a narrow belt leading down the western slope of the hill, stand the principal remains, which consist of the great stupa, a smaller one, a chaifya hall, and some ruined shrines.
A British-era history of the Stupa
The great stnpa, the chief object of interest, stands conspicuously in the centre of the hill. This building forms a segment of a sphere, solid throughout, and built of red sandstone blocks, with a diameter of no feet at the base. A berm 15 feet high, sloping outwards at the base, forms a raised pathway 5^ feet wide round the stupa^ giving it a total diameter of 121 feet 6 inches. The top of the mound is flat and originally supported a stone railing and the usual pinnacle. This railing was still standing in 1819. When complete, the full height must have been 77-^ feet. The stupa is enclosed by a massive stone' railing, with monolithic uprights n feet high, which is* pierced by four
VOL, XXII, C gates covered with carving both illustrative and decorative. To the north and south originally stood two monoliths, which may have borne edicts of Asoka, one of which near the east gate was still entire in 1862 and measured 15 feet 2 inches in height. Just inside each gate is a nearly life-size figure of one of the Dhyani Buddhas; but unfortunately they have been moved, and no longer occupy their original positions. The carved gates are the most striking features of the edifice. They stand facing the four cardinal points, and measure 28 feet 5 inches to the top of the third architrave, and with the ornamentation above, 32 feet n inches. They are cut in a white sandstone rather softer than the red stone used in the mound, and are profusely carved with scenes from the Jataka stories and other legends. It is noteworthy that Buddha himself is nowhere delineated. Bodhi trees or footprints alone represent him ; of the meditating or preaching figures common in later Buddhist sculpture there is no trace.
The construction of the mound is assigned to 250 B.C., and it was probably erected by Asoka. The gates, judging from the inscriptions upon them, are slightly earlier than the beginning of the Christian era. Of the history of Sanchi we know nothing. Neither of the Chinese pilgrims, Fa Hian or Hiuen Tsiang, makes any mention of the place, while the Mahavamso merely narrates a tale of how Asoka, when sent as a young man to be governor of Ujjain, married the daughter of the Sreshtin or headman of Chaitiyagiri or Vasanta-nagar, of which the ruins, now known as Beshnagar, may be seen near BHILSA, but no mention is made of this stupa.
Close by are the ruins of a small temple, built in Gupta style, and probably of the fourth century A.D. Beside it stand the ruins of a chatty a hall or Buddhist church, which is of great importance archi- tecturally, being the only structural building of its kind known to us, the other examples of chaitya halls being rock-cut. All that remains are a series of lofty pillars and the foundations of the wall, which show that it was terminated by a solid apse. To the north-east of the great stupa formerly stood a smaller one, which is now a heap of bricks with a carved gateway before it. To the east on a kind of terrace are several shrines with colossal figures of Buddha. On the western slope of the hill, down which a rough flight of steps leads, is the smaller stupa, surrounded by a railing without gates.
Several relic caskets and more than four hundred epigraphical records have been discovered, the last being cut on the railings and gates. A fragment of an edict pillar of the emperor Asoka, carrying a record similar to that on the Allahabad pillar and the pillar lately discovered at Sarnath, has also been unearthed here. The record is addressed to the Maha-matra in charge of Malwa, and appears to refer to the up- keep of a road leading to or round the stupa. Great interest attaches to the numerous inscriptions on the gates and railings. Some are from corporate bodies, as from the guild of ivory-workers of Vidisha (Bhilsa), and from private individuals of all classes, landholders, alder- men (Sethi), traders, royal scribes, and troopers, showing how strong a hold Buddhism had obtained on all classes of the people. No different sects are mentioned, such as are met with in Buddhist cave records, but the presence of Saiva and Vaishnava names proves the existence of these forms of belief at this period. The donors live at various places, Eran (Eranika), Pushkara (Pokhara), Ujjain (Ujeni), and elsewhere. The records run from the first or second century B. c. to the ninth and tenth A.D., and include some of unusual interest. One assigns the gift of an upper architrave on the south gate to Rano Sari Satakarni, one of the Andhra kings, in characters which fix the date of its erection in the first half of the second century B.C. Two records dated (in the Gupta era) in A.D. 412 and 450 record grants of money for the feeding of beggars and lighting of lamps in the great vihara (monastery) of Kakanadabota. Another record appears to refer to a Kushan king, probably Jushka or Vasudeva. In these records the name of the place is written Kakanada, or in Pali Kakanava, the name SanchI nowhere occurring.
The stnpa was first discovered by General Taylor in 1818, and was described by Captain Fell in 1819. It has since been the subject of accounts by various writers, besides forming the basis of three books : A. Cunningham, Bhilsa Topes (1854) ; J. Fergusson, Tree and Serpent- Worship (1868 and 1873); and F. C. Maisey, Sdnchl and its Remains (1892).
In 1828 Mr. Haddock, Political Agent at Bhopal, and Captain Johnson, his Assistant, injured the two stupas by a careless examina- tion. Though then well-known, the place was practically neglected till 1 88 1-2, when the breach in the great stitpa was filled in and the fallen gates were re-erected. The site is now in charge of the Director- General of Archaeology, the Bhopal Darbar giving a yearly grant towards its upkeep. In 1868 the emperor Napoleon III wrote to the Begam asking for one of the gates as a gift. The Government of India, however, refused to allow it to be removed, and instead plaster casts were taken and sent to Paris; there are also casts at the South Kensington Museum in London, at Dublin, Edinburgh, and elsewhere.
[J. Burgess, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society \ (1903), p. 323 (gives a summary of Sanchi literature) ; Epigraphia Indica, vol. viii, p. 166.]
