Great Stupa of Sanchi: Ashoka's Monument and Its Carved Gateways

The Great Stupa of Sanchi is a monumental Buddhist relic mound on a hilltop in central India, founded in the reign of the Maurya emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BC. Enlarged in the 2nd century BC and surrounded by four richly carved stone gateways around the turn of the era, it is one of the oldest stone structures in India and a masterpiece of early Buddhist art. Its reliefs tell the stories of the Buddha’s life and past lives with remarkable liveliness.

Background

A stupa is a solid hemispherical mound built over relics of the Buddha or of revered teachers. After the Buddha’s death, according to tradition, his ashes were divided among several kingdoms and enshrined in stupas. Worshippers honour the stupa by walking around it in a clockwise direction, a practice called circumambulation.

The Maurya emperor Ashoka (reigned c. 268–232 BC) became a devoted Buddhist after his conquest of Kalinga. Buddhist tradition credits him with opening the original relic mounds and redistributing the relics among many new stupas across his empire. Sanchi was one of the sites he chose.

Why Sanchi?

Sanchi is not linked to any event in the Buddha’s life. Its importance came from its setting. The hill lies a few kilometres from Vidisha, a prosperous trading city at the meeting of the Betwa and Bes rivers, on routes linking the Ganges plain with western India.

The Sri Lankan chronicle known as the Mahavamsa says Ashoka, while serving as a governor in his youth, married Devi, the daughter of a merchant of Vidisha. Their son Mahinda, according to the same tradition, visited a monastery on a hill near Vidisha before leading the Buddhist mission to Sri Lanka. This story is not confirmed by other sources, but it reflects Vidisha’s importance in Maurya times.

Vidisha was also a centre of other religious traditions. At nearby Besnagar stands the Heliodorus pillar, set up around 113 BC by Heliodorus, a Greek envoy of the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas, who described himself as a devotee of the god Vasudeva. The region was clearly a meeting point of peoples and faiths.

Construction in three phases

The Maurya stupa

The first stupa, built around the middle of the 3rd century BC, was made of large burnt bricks and was roughly half the diameter of the present mound. Beside it Ashoka erected a polished sandstone pillar crowned with four lions, similar to the more famous Lion Capital at Sarnath. The pillar, now broken, carries a version of his schism edict warning monks and nuns not to divide the Buddhist community.

Enlargement in the 2nd century BC

In the mid-2nd century BC, during the period of the Shunga dynasty that replaced the Mauryas, the brick stupa was encased in stone and roughly doubled in size. The result is the dome visible today, about 36.6 metres across and 16.5 metres high. A raised terrace was added around its base for circumambulation, reached by a double staircase.

The summit was crowned with a square railing, the harmika, enclosing a stone shaft with three umbrella-like discs, the chhatras, symbolising honour and the three jewels of Buddhism. A plain stone railing, the vedika, was built around the ground-level path. Inscriptions show that its posts and crossbars were paid for by hundreds of individual donors, including monks, nuns, merchants and craftsmen.

The gateways

The four great gateways, or toranas, were added between the late 1st century BC and the early 1st century AD. They stand at the four cardinal points, each about 8.5 metres high, with two square pillars supporting three curved horizontal beams. The southern gateway is thought to be the earliest, followed by the northern, eastern and western ones.

An inscription on the southern gateway records that a beam was the gift of Ananda, the foreman of artisans of the king Siri Satakarni. This is usually taken to be a ruler of the Satavahana dynasty of the Deccan, though which Satakarni is meant is debated. Another inscription records a gift by the ivory carvers of Vidisha, which helps explain the gateways’ delicate, intricate carving.

The carvings

Telling stories in stone

Almost every surface of the gateways is covered with reliefs. They show scenes from the Buddha’s life, such as his birth, his departure from his palace, his enlightenment, his first sermon and his death. They also show the Jatakas, stories of the Buddha’s previous lives, including the tale of Prince Vessantara, who gave away all he owned, and the six-tusked elephant Chhaddanta.

Other panels depict historical events. One shows the “War of the Relics”, when kings fought over the Buddha’s remains. Another is believed to show Ashoka visiting the Bodhi tree at Bodh Gaya, supported by his queens, and another his visit to the stupa at Ramagrama.

Showing the Buddha without his image

The Buddha himself never appears in human form at Sanchi. His presence is shown by symbols: an empty throne, a footprint, a wheel representing his teaching, a parasol, a Bodhi tree or a stupa. This aniconic approach was typical of early Buddhist art in India, before human images of the Buddha became common in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD.

Daily life and nature

The reliefs are also a rich record of ancient Indian life. They show walled cities with gates and balconies, processions, musicians, chariots, boats and village scenes. Animals, from elephants and lions to peacocks and imaginary beasts, appear everywhere. On the eastern gateway, graceful female figures called shalabhanjikas lean out from the pillars, holding branches of trees, and are among the most admired sculptures of ancient India.

Other monuments on the hill

Sanchi is not a single monument but a complex of stupas, temples and monasteries built over about 1,300 years. Stupa No. 3, close to the Great Stupa, held relics identified by inscriptions as those of the Buddha’s chief disciples, Sariputta and Mahamoggallana. Stupa No. 2, lower down the slope, has a railing carved with some of the earliest reliefs on the site.

From the Gupta period comes Temple 17, a small flat-roofed stone shrine of the early 5th century AD with a columned porch. It is one of the earliest surviving freestanding stone temples in India. Monastic buildings continued to be added until around the 12th century, after which the site was gradually abandoned.

Rediscovery and restoration

In 1818 the British officer General Henry Taylor reported the ruins, then largely intact. The following decades were damaging. Amateur treasure hunters dug into the stupas in search of relics, and some gateway pieces fell.

In 1851 Alexander Cunningham and Frederick Maisey excavated the site and found relic caskets in Stupa No. 3. These relics were taken to Britain and later displayed in London. They were returned to India in the late 1940s, and in 1952 they were enshrined in the new Chetiyagiri Vihara at Sanchi, built by the Maha Bodhi Society.

In the 1880s some repairs were made, and in the 1870s plaster casts of the eastern gateway were made for museums in Europe, one of which is displayed at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The decisive restoration came between 1912 and 1919 under John Marshall, director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India, who rebuilt fallen gateways, stabilised the stupas and founded a site museum.

Legacy

Sanchi became a model for Buddhist architecture across Asia. The torana form spread with Buddhism, and gateways of similar shape appear in East Asian religious architecture, though the exact lines of influence are debated. The site’s carvings, together with those at Bharhut, are the foundation of the history of Indian narrative sculpture.

In 1989 the Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Pilgrims from across the Buddhist world still come to Sanchi, both for the Great Stupa and to venerate the relics of Sariputta and Mahamoggallana in the Chetiyagiri Vihara.

By the numbers

Timeline

• c. 260–232 BC: A brick stupa and a lion-topped pillar are built in Ashoka’s reign.
• c. 185 BC: The Shunga dynasty replaces the Mauryas in the Ganges valley.
• Mid-2nd century BC: The stupa is encased in stone, enlarged and given a railing.
• Late 1st century BC – early 1st century AD: The four carved gateways are erected.
• Early 5th century AD: Temple 17 is built in the Gupta period.
• 1818: General Henry Taylor reports the site.
• 1851: Alexander Cunningham and Frederick Maisey excavate relic caskets in Stupa No. 3.
• 1912–1919: John Marshall leads a major restoration.
• 1989: Sanchi becomes a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Why it matters

The Great Stupa of Sanchi preserves, in one place, the growth of Buddhist architecture from Ashoka’s brick mound to the stone gateways of the early centuries AD. Its sculptures offer an unmatched window onto early Buddhist belief and everyday life in ancient India, and they remain among the greatest achievements of Indian art.