Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi

Overview

The Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi are a group of stupas (dome-shaped monuments built to enshrine relics), temples, pillars, and monasteries located on a hilltop in Madhya Pradesh, central India, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Great Stupa at their center was commissioned by the emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE. Sanchi is an active pilgrimage destination, and relics of two of the Buddha's chief disciples are venerated at a temple beside the ancient complex.

Present

The Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi are maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India, the government body responsible for India's protected monuments. Buddhist worship centers on the Chetiyagiri Vihara, a temple built beside the ancient complex by the Maha Bodhi Society, an international Buddhist organization, to house relics of Sariputta and Moggallana, the two chief disciples of the Buddha. The relics were excavated from one of the Sanchi stupas in the 19th century and taken to Britain; after their return they were enshrined at the temple in 1952. Once a year, on the last Sunday of November, the relics are brought out for public veneration during the Chetiyagiri Vihara festival, which draws Buddhist monks and pilgrims from many countries.

Religious Significance

The Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi hold their place in Buddhism through the relics they enshrine, not through events in the life of the Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, who is not recorded to have visited the hill. A stupa is a solid dome built over relics, and venerating relics of the Buddha and his disciples is a central devotional practice in Buddhism: devotees walk around a stupa clockwise, a practice called circumambulation, for which Sanchi's stupas are ringed by railed walkways. Buddhist tradition holds that the emperor Ashoka distributed the relics of the Buddha among thousands of stupas across his empire, and the Great Stupa at Sanchi is regarded as enshrining a portion of them. Relics of Sariputta and Moggallana, whom the Buddha named his two chief disciples, were found in a smaller stupa at the site and are venerated today at the neighboring Chetiyagiri Vihara temple, whose annual relic display is the focus of pilgrimage to Sanchi.

History & Structure

The Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi began with the Great Stupa, commissioned in the mid-3rd century BCE by Ashoka, ruler of the Maurya Empire, who adopted Buddhism and promoted it across India; a monumental stone pillar bearing his edicts stood beside it. In the 2nd century BCE the stupa was enlarged to roughly twice its original size and faced in stone, and in the 1st century BCE four carved gateways, called Toranas, were added at the cardinal points. Further stupas, temples, and monasteries were built on the hill over the following centuries, and Sanchi was an active monastic center until about the 12th century CE, when Buddhism declined in India and the site was abandoned. It was rediscovered in 1818 and excavated during the 19th century, and restoration in the early 20th century gave the monuments their present form. The Great Stupa is a solid hemispherical dome about 36 meters in diameter and 16 meters high, crowned by a triple stone parasol and surrounded by a stone railing. The Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1989.

Additional Resources

• Official website: Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi, Archaeological Survey of India
• Related: The stupa, an introduction (Smarthistory)
• UNESCO: Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi