Sanchi – of Serene and Secluded Stups

The calmness washes over you as you make your way up the wooded hill. Early monsoon rains have cleansed the air and the trees look resplendent in dewy leaves. Moisture makes the air heavy but the breeze makes the morning perfect. What is it with the calmness and Buddhist places? You wonder whether the hill was secluded and calm to begin with which prompted Ashok to build the stups or is it the presence of remains of saints that gives the place the serenity.

Couple of months ago you crossed the Tropic of Cancer in Kutch and the same imaginary line makes it appearance here again. On the right you can see the stups on the hill peeping from above the tree canopies as you drive the short distance from Bhopal to Sanchi. As always you are the first one at the ticket counter.

A stone path leads you from the gate to the Great Stup of Mauryan Emperor Ashok. On either side of the path, workers hunch over the immaculate grass beds. Sanchi is an amazingly maintained UNESCO World Heritage Site. The signage is excellent. There are days you feel proud of the ASI – this is one of those days; Chanderi was another. You wish the people who manage MP heritage sites are sent to Red Fort in Delhi to make it less gloomy and bearable.

The Great Stup or Stup 1 looms ahead. The hemispherical Great Stup was commissioned by Emperor Ashok (273 – 236 BC) in the 3rd century BC as a brick structure. His wife Devi probably oversaw its construction. The plastered flat dome is crowned with a triple umbrella called chhatravali housed in a box like Harmika. Later during the 2nd century BC, Sung dynasty enlarged the dome and covered the structure with stone thus making it the first stone structure in India. They also added a double stairway leading to circumambulatory path around the core. Balustrades were added at the ground level to provide another path around the structure. Access to the stup is through four gateways that have images of Buddha. The Great Stupa occupies the pride of place in the setup and all other monuments were seemingly built around it.

On the west of the Great Stup lie the ruins of Monastery 51. As usual it is a quadrangular structure with monks’ cells arranged around a central open courtyard. The surviving stone walls are faced with bricks. It is believed, the roofs and pillars were made of wood. The monastery was perhaps built in the medieval times.

Just beyond on the western downhill slope is the solitary Stup 2. It has the same design as the Stup 1 but without any gateways or torans. You are on the edge of the hill and can see a train snaking its way down below probably going to Vidisha, Ashok’s in-laws place. This is the most tranquil place of all and few visitors come down here. A small lake next to the stup completes the perfect picture. You are not surprised to see the guard sleeping on the bench. The peace will lull anyone into the sweetest nap.

You huff and puff back to the Stup 1 to see a temple with tall pillars just south of the Great Stup. You have not seen anything like it before. And then the coin drops. The Temple 18 with seventeen feet monolithic pillars seems to have the classical Greek columned architecture. It is possible that some Greek Ambassador in the Mauryan court commissioned this temple. There is an obvious Greek connection to Sanchi since apparent Greek figures can be seen in the lavish carvings of the Stup 1 torans.

Next to it is the Temple 17, a 4th century Gupta period construction considered to be one of the earliest Gupta temple. According to John Marshall, this elegant temple conveys the genius of the people of that time and helps us understand the evolution of Indian temple architecture. The flat roofed temple with sanctum (garbhgriha) and portico (mandap) is known for its symmetry and proportions. This temple heralds the arrival of engineering and artistry that will go into the building of temples from here on.

Sanchi monuments span a period of thirteen hundred years from third century BC to the 12th century traversing the entire lineage of Buddhism in India. It is highly unlikely for anyone or a place to owe its place under the sun to the in-laws. But it turned true for Sanchi. Vidisha, which is a little distance from Sanchi, was the sasural (in-laws home) of the great Emperor Ashok. The queen Devi was the daughter of a merchant in Vidisha. Ashok, then a Governor, probably saw the secluded hill on his way to Ujjain and decided to build stup and install a pillar. Sanchi then went on to become one of the most revered Buddhist sites. This is surprising since Lord Buddha never set His foot on this hill. Even Hiuen Tsang and Fa-Hien, who visited most of the Buddhist sites in India, do not mention Sanchi in their travelogues.

The reason for Sanchi’s continuous popularity for more than thousand years could owe to the presence of rich trader community of Vidisha, presence of two rivers Betwa and Bes and the trade routes. Sanchi declined after the 13th century for some unknown reasons and vegetation took over the hill. In 1818 the site was discovered by an English army man. The vegetation was removed to reveal an extraordinary archaeological trove of fifty monuments. Subsequent to various perfect and not so perfect preservation exercises, Sir John Marshall, the Director General of Archaeology, took up a large scale repair work during 1912-1919. He also set up the nearby Sanchi Museum. Before this in 1851 Alexander Cunningham, the founder of Archaeological Survey of India, undertook massive study of the monuments and is known to be the authority on Buddhist sites of India. It was Cunningham who gave the different monuments identification numbers that are still used.

Stups are earthen burial mounds of Buddhist saints. It is said when Lord Budhha died, He was cremated and the ashes buried in eight stups. None of these stups are said to be identified. Stups at Sanchi and Sarnath take this tradition forward. Though Sanchi was never visited by Buddha, it is an important Buddhist site as it houses the most spectacular stups anywhere.

And just like Bidar in Karnataka is a necropolis of Bahmani Sultans dotted with graves, Sanchi has innumerable stups of all sizes. While stups 1, 2 and 3 are big complete structures, other stups are quite tiny and some just comprise of a few stones. Most of these are found on the east of Stup 1. The stups mostly housed relics of Buddhist teachers, disciples and Masters.

Among these stups are some pillars probably installed during Ashok’s reign. The pillars are made of the polished golden sandstone quarried from Chunar near Varanasi. You have seen similar Ashok Pillars with the proverbial Mauryan polish in Feroz Shah Kotla and opposite Bara Hindu Rao hospital in Delhi. The largest pillar in Sanchi was the Pillar 10 of presumably 40 feet in length. Now just few pieces remain. Imagine transporting a monolithic pillar of about 40 tons from Varanasi to Sanchi and then to the top of the hill. Of course rivers played an important role in the transportation. The base of the pillar is in-situ at the south gate of Stup 1. Two pieces are housed under a shed. It is believed a local zamindar broke the pillar to use the pieces as sugarcane crusher! No wonder, zamindari system was abolished. The crowning glory of the pillar is the Lion Capital of Ashok that is today exhibited in the nearby Sanchi Museum. In architecture terms, capital means the topmost member of pillar or column. On top of the capital is the round abacus that supports the four lions seated back to back.

Just beyond to the East is the towering Temple 45 and the remains of a monastery. It is a medieval temple possibly built over an earlier monastery. The temple has lost much of its original splendour but there is presence of Ganga and Jumuna on the door jambs. The southern wing has a statue of Lord Buddha.

On the north-east of the Stup 1 is the Stup 3. Stups 2 & 3 were built during the Sung dynasty in second century BC, a little after Stup 1. Stup 3 has one gateway in the South and looking at old photos, has been extensively rebuilt. Cunningham found relics of Buddh’s two foremost disciples here that were taken to London but subsequently returned to India. Behind is the ruined Stup 4 with no gateway or balustrade.

After wandering around the hill, you are drawn back to the crown jewel that is the Stup 1. The four magnificent gateways with their exquisite carvings are the main attraction of Sanchi and its trademark. The stup was embellished with the eye-popping carved torans in the 1st century BC by the Satavahans. Satavahans were the right people with the right credentials for the job. They gave us the glorious Ajanta temples. You are just relieved that the torans have survived for over two thousand years in almost pristine condition. Of course credit goes to Cunningham and Marshall for the restoration efforts.

The four gateways are installed at four cardinal directions of the stup. They have a common design – two square pillars with capitals and surmounted by three parallel architraves. All sides of the columns and the rear and front of the architraves are profusely carved. You could mistake the carved panels for wood or ivory. A lot of carving is overlapping and would require highly skilled workers. Reportedly, the workers were ivory carvers of Vidisha.

The North Gateway is the most preserved gateway. The capitals have elephants flanked by voluptuous salabhanjikas or celestial nymphs. The top architrave is crowned with the Dharma Chakra, Tri-Ratna and Yakshis.

The panels on the gateways depict Jataka tales. Jataka tales are sacred Buddist literature comprising of anecdotes and stories of earlier incarnations as Bodhisattvas of the being who would later become Siddharth Gautam. As a Bodhisattva, He took births as man, animal and bird. After accumulating enough virtues, He attained Nirvana in his final birth as Prince Siddharth. It is said most of the stories are set in Varanasi. It was here at nearby Sarnath where Buddh taught the Dharm – His first sermon.

Also, depicted are the incidents from the life of Buddh – but no where the Buddh is represented in human form. However, four images of Buddh are placed at the four gateways probably brought from Mathura. The panels also carry scenes from later history of Buddhism, miscellaneous events and decorations.

The South Gateway perhaps was the principal entrance to the stup since the Ashok Pillar 10 was installed here. The gateway is damaged and the columns have capitals of four lions.

Together, the gateways are a profusion of carvings of motifs and human figures that seems to be spilling down from the different members of the gateways. You can just gape at them with overwhelming sense of what people could create two millenniums ago.

On the way back you stopover at the museum housing excavated antiques. It has a nice collection of old photos when the site was pretty much in ruins. Today the hill is as calm and pretty as it would have been before Ashok found it. The relics of the Buddhist Masters only add to the serenity of the place. The breeze seems to whisper prayers in your ears as you make your way down into this world again.

Getting There: Sanchi is a comfortable distance of about 50 kms from Bhopal. It will take about three hours to completely view the hill housing the stups, temple and monastery ruins. You can combine your visit to Sanchi with Udaigiri Caves in Vidisha, about 10 kms away from Sanchi. If you are feeling brave then visit the group of stups at Satdhaara about an hour drive from Sanchi; and if you want to complete the Buddhist circuit then visit Sonar and Andher too.