India Travel

The southern area of the enclosure harbours some of Sanchi’s most interesting temples. Pieces of burnt wood dug from the foundations of Temple 40 prove that the present apsicial-cnded chaitya was built on top of an earlier structure contemporary with the Mauryan Stupa 1. Temple 17 is a fine example of early Gupta architecture and the precursor of the classical Hindu design developed later in Orissa and Khajuraho. Its small, flat-roofed sanctum is entered via an open-sided porch held up by four finely carved pillars with lion capitals. Nearby, directly opposite the Great Stupa’s southern entrance, the talislender pillars of Temple 18 lend it a distinctly Greek air, but in fact, the temple layout follows the usual design for rock-cut Buddhist chaitya halls, and resembles the apsidal plan of the caves at Karle and Bhaja. Rebuilt several times since its original construction, the present structure dates from the seventh century.

Before leaving the enclosure, hunt out the stump of Ashoka’s pillar (#10) to the right of Stupa Is southern torana. Columns such as this were erected by the Mauryan emperor all over the empire to mark sacred sices and pilgrims’ trails (seo Contexts). Its finely polished shaft (made, like all Ashokan pillars, with a sandstone known as Chunar after a quarry on the Ganges nearVaranasi) was originally crowned with the magnificent lion capital now housed in the site museum. The inscription etched around its base is in the Brahmi script, recording Ashoka’s edicts in Pali, the early Buddhist language and forerunner of Sanskrit.

Of the dozens of other numbered ruins around the 400-metre enclosure, only a handful is of more than passing interest. Smaller, plainer and graced with only one ceremonial gateway, the immaculately restored Stupa 3, immediately northeast of Stupa 1, is upstaged by its slightly older cousin in every way but one. In 1851, a pair of priceless reliquaries was discovered deep in the middle of the mound. Turned on a lathe from fine marble-like soapstone called steatite, the caskets were found to contain relics belonging to two of Buddha’s closest disciples. In one, fragments of bone were encased with beads made from pearls, crystal, amethyst, lapis lazuli and gypsum, while on the lid, the initial of the saint they are thought to have belonged to, Sanputra, was painted in ink. Once in the British Museum, along with other treasures pilfered from Sanchi, both are now safely locked in the new Buddhist temple outside the stupa enclosure, and are brought our for public view for one day each December (ask at any MPTDC tourist office for details). On this day, Sanchi is transformed from a lonely open-air museum into a bustling pilgrimage site, with devotees from as far afield as Sri Lanka and Japan.

The enclosures tenth-century eastern boundary wall is the best place from which to enjoy Sanchi’s serene views, especially at sunset. To the northeast, a huge, sheer-sided rock rises from the midst of Vidisha, near the site of the ancient city that sponsored the monasteries here (traces of the pilgrimage trail between Besnagar and Sanchi can still be seen crossing the hillside below). South from the hill, a wide expanse of well-watered wheat-fields, dotted with clumps of mango and palm trees, stretches off towards the angular sandstone ridges of the Raisen escarpment on the distant horizon.

From Stupa 3, pick your way through the clutter of pillars, small stupas and exposed temple floors nearby to the large complex of interconnecting raised terraces at the far eastern edge of the site. The most intact monastery of the bunch, Vihara 45, dates from the ninth and tenth centuries, and has the usual layout of cells ranged around a central courtyard. Originally, a colossal, richly decorated sanctuary tower soared high above the complex, but this collapsed, leaving the inner sanctum exposed. The river goddesses Ganga and Yamuna number among the skilfully sculpted figures flanking the entrance to the shrine itself- testimony to the mounting popularity of Brahminism at the start of the medieval era. Inside, however, Buddha still reigns supreme. Regally enthroned on a lotus bloom, his right hand touches the ground to call upon the earth goddess to witness the moment of his enlightenment.

Panels on the inner face of the pillar below the salabhanjika depict scenes from the life of the Buddha, including his conception when the bodhisattva entered the body of his mother, Maya, in the form of a white elephant, shown astride a crescent moon. The front face of the middle architrave picks up the tale some years later, when the young Buddha, represented by a riderless horse, nukes his Great Departure from the palace where he grew up to begin the life of a wandering ascetic. The reverse side shows the fully enlightened Master, now symbolized by an empty throne, with a crowd of celestial beings and jungle animals paying their respects.
Leaning languorously into space from the right capital of the eastern torana is Sanchi’s most celebrated piece of sculpture, the sensuous salabhanjika, or wood-nymph. The full-breasted fertility goddess is one of several such figures that once blessed worshippers as they entered the Great Stupa. Only a few, however, still remain in place, others having been removed to Los Angeles and I London. Her tribhanga, or hip-shot stance, is a classical dance pose which, from this moment onwards, was to become a distinctive feature of all Indian religious sculpture.

Crowned with a fragmented Wheel of the Law and two tridents symbolizing the Buddhist trinity, the northern torana is the most elaborate and best-preserved of the four gateways. Scenes crammed onto its two vertical posts include Buddha performing an aerial promenade - one of many stunts he pulled to impress a group of heretics - and a monkey presenting the Master with a bowl of honey. Straddling the two pillars, a bas-relief on both faces of the lowest crossbeam depicts the Vessantara Jataka, telling of a bodhisattva-prince banished by his father for giving away a magical rain-making elephant. During his exile, the over-generous Vessantara was persuaded to part with everything else that was dear to him, including his wife and children, before finally being forgiven by the king. A better view of the inner, south-facing side of the plaque can be had from the balcony of the stupa’s raised terrace. Note the little tableau on the far right showing the royal family trudging through the jungle; the prince’s son is holding his father’s hand, while his daughter clings to her mother’s hip. The four elephants sculpted from the capital supporting the architraves are also very realistic, as are other, smaller elephants, horses and female wood-nymphs separating the three beams.

The western torana collapsed during the depredations of the nineteenth century, but has been skilfully restored. Some of Sanchi’s liveliest sculpture appears around its two square posts. In the top right panel, a troop of monkeys scurries across a bridge over the Ganges, made by the bodhisattva, their leader, from his own body to help them escape a gang of soldiers (seen below). According to the Mahakapi Jataka, the troops were dispatched by the local king to capture a coveted mango tree from which the monkeys had been feeding. You can also just about make out the tinal scene, where the repentant monarch gets a stern ticking-off from the bodhisattva under a peepal tree. High on the cop crossbeam, the eight Buddhas, including Maitreya, the Buddha-to-come, appear as a line of bodhi trees and stupas.

One of the most frequently represented episodes from the life of the Buddha features on the first two panels of the left-hand post facing the stupa. In the Temptation of Mara, the Buddha, who has vowed to remain under the bodhi tree until he attains enlightenment, heroically ignores the attempts of the evil demon Mara to distract him with threats of violence and seductive women (Mara’s beautiful daughters). Notice the contrast at the end between Man’s agitated troops and the solemn-faced procession of angels who accompany the Buddha after he has achieved his goal.

Opening directly onto the ceremonial staircase, the southern torana was the Great Stupa’s principal entrance, as is borne out by the proximity of the stump of Ashoka’s original stone pillar. Over the years, some of the panels with the best sculpture have dropped off the gateway (and are now housed in the site museum), but those that remain on the three crossbeams are still in reasonable condition. A carved frieze on the middle architrave shows Ashoka, complete with royal retinue, visiting a stupa in a traditional show of veneration. On the reverse side, the scene switches to one of the Buddha’s previous incarnations. For the Chhaddanta Jataka, the bodhisattva adopts the guise of an elephant who, in extreme selflessness, helps an ivory hunter saw off his own (six) tusks.

Stupa 1, or the Great Stupa, stands on a stretch of level ground at the western edge of the plateau. Fragments of the original construction, a much smaller version built in the third century BC by Ashoka, still lie entombed beneath the thick outer shell of lime plaster added a century later. The Shungas were responsible for the raised processional balcony, and the two graceful staircases that curve gently around the sides of the drum from the paved walkway at ground level, as well as the aerial-like chhattm and its square enclosure which crown the top of the mound. Four elaborate gateways were added by the Satavahanas in the first century BC, followed by the four serene meditating Buddhas that greet you as you pass through the main entrances. Carved out of local sandstone, these were installed during the Gupta era, around 450 AD, by which time figurative depictions of Buddha had become acceptable (elsewhere in Sanchi, the Master is euphemistically represented by an empty throne, a wheel, a pair of footprints or even a parasol).

As you move gradually closer to the stupa, the extraordinary wealth of sculpture adorning the toranas slips slowly into focus. Staring up at these masterpieces from below, you can see why archeologists believe them to have been the work of ivory craftsmen. Every conceivable nook and cranny of the eight-metre upright posts and three curving cross-bars teems with delicate figures of I humans, demigods and goddesses, birds, beasts and propitious symbols. Some of the larger reliefs depict narratives drawn from the lives of Gautama Buddha and his six predecessors, the Manushis, while others recount Ashoka’s dissemination of the faith. In between are purely decorative panels and illustrations of heaven intended to inspire worshippers to lead meritorious lives on earth. Start with the torana on the south side, which is the oldest, and proceed in a clockwise direction around the stupa - as is the custom at Buddhist monuments.

Unlike the other famous Buddhist centres in eastern India and Nepal. Sanchi has no known connection with the life of Buddha himself. It first became a place of pilgrimage when the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, who married a woman from nearby Besnagar, erected a polished stone pillar and brick-and-mortar stupa here midway through the third century BC. The complex was enlarged by successive dynasties, buc after the eclipse of Buddhism Sanchi lay deserted and overgrown until its rediscovery in 1818 by Genafl Taylor of the Bengal Cavalry- In the years that followed, a swarm of heavy-handed treasure hunters invaded the site, eager to crack open the giant stone eggs and make off with what they imagined to be their valuable contents. Infact, only Stupas 3 and 4 yielded anything more than rubble; the soapstone relic caskets containing bone fragments are displayed in the new temple for one day each December. These amateur archeologists, however, left the ruins in a sorry state. Deep gouges gaped from the sides of stupas 1 and 2, a couple of ceremonial gateways completely collapsed, and much of the masonry was plundered by the villagers for building materials (one local landlord is alleged to have carted of TAshoka’s pillar to use as a roller in his sugar cane press).

Restoration work made little impact until the archeologist John Marshall and the Buddhist scholar Albert Foucher took on the job in 1912. The jungle was hacked away, the main stupas and temples were rebuilt, lawns and trees planted and a museum erected to house what sculpture had not been shipped off to Delhi or London.

From a distance, the smooth-sided hemispherical object that appears on a hillock overlooking the main train line at SANCHI. 46km northeast of Bhopal, has the surreal air of a space station or an upturned satellite dish. In fact, the giant stone mound stands as testimony to a much older means of communing with the cosmos. Quite apart from being India’s finest surviving Buddhist monument, the Great Stupa is one of the earliest religious structures in the subcontinent. It presides over a complex of ruined temples and monasteries that collectively provide a rich and unbroken record of the development of Buddhist art and architecture from the faith’s first emergence in central India during the third century BC, until it was eventually squeezed out by the resurgence of Brahmanism during the medieval era.

A visit to Sanchi, however, is no dry lesson in South Asian art history. The main stupa is surrounded by some of the richest and best-preserved ancient sculpture you’re ever likely to see in situ, while the site itself, floating serenely above a vast expanse of open plains, has preserved the tranquillity that must have attracted its original occupants. Most visitors find a couple of hours more than sufficient to explore the ruins, although you could spend several days poring over the four exquisite gateways, or toranas, that surround the Great Stupa. Paved walkways and steps lead around the hilltop enclosure (daily 8am-6pm: $10 [Rs5]), dotted with interpretative panels and shady trees to relax under if the heat gets the better of you.

The site is connected to the small village at the foot of the hill by a metalled road. Once you’ve bought an entrance ticket from the roadside booth outside the museum, head up the stone steps on the right, past the welcoming posse of postcard-wallahs, to the main entrance. From here, the central walkway runs alongside the new Sri Lankan Buddhist temple and a cold-drinks stall, before leading straight to the Great Stupa.

Set among verdant rolling hills 30km north of Bhopal, SATDHARA ("seven streams") is well worth the detour for stupa enthusiasts, although you’ll need your own vehicle to get there. Heading north from Bhopal, a signpost about 13km south of Sanchi points west down a motorable seven-kilometre dirt, track leading to the excavated site. There are no less than thirty-four stupas dating from the Mauryan period in the third century BC, several of which are in good condition, and fourteen monasteries, three of which have substantial foundations still visible. Under the auspices of UNESCO, a number of the stupas and two of the monasteries have now been reconstructed using original methods and materials, and others including the huge stupa 1 are currently under excavation and renovation.

A path down to the left of the makeshift car park leads directly to a line of well-restored stupas, perched on the cliff edge of a dramatic ravine. No human bones have been discovered in any ot these mounds, unlike their counterparts at Sanchi. Past stupas 6, 7, and 8 you come to the largest and most impressive of them all, known simply as stupa 1. standing 13m high and with a medhi (broad circumanibulatory path) around the base. Some of its sculpted toranas (gateways) have been moved a short distance away for restoration work, but remain on view. Immediately behind it is the imposing 3m-tall foundation platform of Monastery 1. whilst to the right are two circular mills, where oxen still push a great stone around a rut to crush the lime, sand and stone rubble for cement - the technique used by the original architects.

Alongside the numerous subsidiary stupas and monasteries, the remains of apsidal temples from the second century BC Gupta period bear inscriptions in Brahmi script. A multitude of coins, tools and terracotta objects have been unearthed and removed for cataloguing and eventual display. If you do make it here, you’re virtually guaranteed to have the atmospheric site all to yourself.