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The Great Stupa of Sanchi
Context:
Recently, the External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar visited the replica of the East Gate of Sanchi’s Great Stupa, located outside the Humboldt Forum museum in Berlin.
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- This intricate red sandstone gateway, unveiled in December 2022, is a full-scale reproduction of the original, standing nearly 10 metres tall, 6 metres wide, and weighing approximately 150 tonnes.
Sanchi, a historic site in west-central Madhya Pradesh, India, is located on a sandstone hill about 5 miles (8 km) southwest of Vidisha, near the Betwa River. It is renowned for its well-preserved Buddhist monuments, which were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1989.
The Great Stupa of Sanchi
- A stupa is a Buddhist monument built to commemorate and often house sacred relics of the Buddha or other revered saints. The classic stupa features a hemispherical structure, with origins tracing back to pre-Buddhist burial mounds in India.
- The Great Stupa of Sanchi is a prime example of this architectural form.
- Commissioned in the 3rd century BCE by Emperor Ashoka, it is the largest and oldest structure within a complex of Buddhist monuments, which includes various stupas, temples, and monasteries.
- Some parts of the Sanchi complex were built as late as the 12th century CE.
- It is one of the oldest surviving stone structures in India, believed to have been built over relics of the Buddha.
- Its construction was overseen by Ashoka’s wife, Devi, who was from the nearby town of Vidisha, and the development of the Sanchi complex was supported by Vidisha’s mercantile community.
Gateways of the Great Stupa
- Although the original stupa is a simple hemispherical structure topped with a chhatra (parasol), its defining feature is the ornamental gateways, or toranas, that stand before it.
- These four toranas, aligned with the cardinal directions, were built in the 1st century BCE, likely within a few decades of each other, during the Satavahana dynasty.
- Each gateway consists of two square pillars supporting a superstructure of three curved architraves (beams) with spiralled ends.
- Both the pillars and the architraves are richly decorated with intricate bas-relief carvings and sculptures, illustrating scenes from the Buddha’s life, the Jataka Tales, and other Buddhist symbols.
- The toranas, along with the balustrade encircling the Great Stupa, were painted once.
The East Gate and its Replica
- In Europe, the East Gate is the most renowned of the Sanchi toranas, and there’s a historical reason for this.
- The Sanchi complex was in ruins when British officer Henry Taylor “discovered” it in 1818.
- Alexander Cunningham, who later founded the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), conducted the first formal survey and excavation of the site in 1851.
- Restoration to its current state was led by ASI director-general John Marshall in the 1910s, with financial support from the begums of Bhopal.
- Lieutenant Henry Hardy Cole made a plaster cast of the East Gate for the Victoria and Albert Museum in the late 1860s.
- Several replicas of this cast were later created and displayed across Europe. The latest replica in Berlin traces its origin to this original cast.
- 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 Great Departure, when Prince Siddhartha leaves Kapilavastu to live as an ascetic in search of enlightenment.
- The lower architrave shows Emperor Ashoka visiting the Bodhi tree, where the Buddha attained enlightenment.
- Other decorative features include the shalabhanjika (a fertility symbol represented by a yakshi holding a tree branch), elephants, winged lions, and peacocks.