Latest revision as of 18:45, 31 December 2024

[edit] Sanchi, as in 1908

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.

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.

[edit] 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.]

[edit] A 2024 history

Arjun Sengupta, Sep 13, 2024: The Indian Express

The ornate red sandstone gateway, which was unveiled in December 2022, is a 1:1 reproduction of the original structure standing at almost 10 metres high and 6 metres wide, and weighing roughly 150 tonnes.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar stopped by the replica of the East Gate of Sanchi’s Great Stupa standing in front of Humboldt Forum museum in Berlin.

The ornate red sandstone gateway, which was unveiled in December 2022, is a 1:1 reproduction of the original structure standing at almost 10 metres high and 6 metres wide, and weighing roughly 150 tonnes.

The Great Stupa of Sanchi

A stupa is a Buddhist commemorative monument usually containing sacred relics of the Buddha or other venerable saints. The archetypal stupa is a hemispherical structure, whose origins can be traced to pre-Buddhist burial mounds found in India.

The Great Stupa of Sanchi exemplifies this form. Commissioned in the third century BCE by Emperor Ashoka, it is the largest and oldest structure in a complex of Buddhist monuments comprising numerous other stupas, temples, and monasteries. The most recent construction in Sanchi can be dated to as late as the twelfth century CE.

“Sanchi is unique not only in its having the most perfect and well-preserved stupas but also in its offering a wide and educative field for the study of the genesis, efflorescence and decay of Buddhist art and architecture [in India],” Debala Mitra, the director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1981 to 1983, wrote in Sanchi (1957).

The Great Stupa is one of the oldest standing stone structures in India, believed to have been built over the Buddha’s relics. Its construction was overseen by Ashoka’s wife Devi, who hailed from the nearby trading town of Vidisha. The development of the Sanchi complex was supported by patronage from Vidisha’s mercantile community.

Gateways of the Great Stupa

While the original stupa itself is a rather plain hemispherical structure crowned by a chhatra (parasol), what makes it instantly recognisable are the ornamental gateways or toranas that stand in front of it.

The four toranas, oriented to the four cardinal directions, were constructed in the first century BCE, likely within a few decades of each other during the reign of the Satavahana dynasty.

These gateways are made of two square pillars which support a superstructure comprising three curved architraves (or beams) with spirally-rolled ends. The pillars and the architraves are adorned with beautiful bas relief and sculptures depicting scenes from the Buddha’s life, stories from the Jataka Tales, and other Buddhist iconography.

“The art impresses greatly by its rhythm, symmetry, decorative beauty and perfect handling of the floral and plant motifs… They even admitted flagrantly amorous scenes on their sacred monuments, which do not fit in with Buddha’s teachings,” Mitra wrote. The gates do not, however, represent the Buddha in his human form, as was the norm in the period of their construction.

The toranas and the balustrade surrounding the Great Stupa were once painted.

The East Gate and its replica

In Europe, the East Gate is the most famous of the Sanchi toranas. There is a historical reason behind this.

The Sanchi complex was in abject ruins when it was “discovered” by British officer Henry Taylor in 1818. Alexander Cunningham, who later founded the ASI, led the first formal survey and excavations at Sanchi in 1851. The site was restored to its present condition by ASI director-general John Marshall in the 1910s with funding from the begums of nearby Bhopal.

Till restoration work began in the late ninteenth century, however, Sanchi was frequently ravaged by treasure hunters and amateur archaeologists, some of whom wanted to take its gates to Europe. They were unable to do so, and had to make do with plaster casts instead.

The East Gate was cast in plaster by Lieutenant Henry Hardy Cole for the Victoria and Albert Museum in the late 1860s. Multiple copies of this cast were later made, and displayed across Europe. The latest Berlin replica too traces its origin to this original cast.

According to the website of the Humboldt Forum, “A plaster cast of the original gate, purchased from London, was on display in the entrance hall of the Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde Berlin from 1886. A cast of this preserved copy was made of artificial stone in 1970…”

This is what was used for the Humboldt Forum replica, with 3D scanning, modern robots, skilled German and Indian sculptors, and enlarged photos of the original torana for aid.

The upper architrave of the gate represents the seven Manushi Buddhas (previous Buddhas, with the historical Buddha being  the latest incarnation). The middle architrave depicts the scene of the Great Departure, when prince Siddhartha leaves Kapilavastu to live as an ascetic in search of enlightenment. The lower architrave depicts Emperor Ashoka visiting the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment.

Other decorative elements include the shalabhanjika (a fertility emblem represented by a yakshi grasping the branch of a tree), elephants, winged lions, and peacocks.