Caityagiri Vihara, Sanchi

In October 2009 I had the good fortune to visit the Buddhist pilgrimage site of Sanchi in India. The site, although off the beaten track for most pilgrims, has especial importance to Sri Lankans, for reasons made clear (it is hoped) below.

The village of Sanchi is located in the Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh, about 45 kilometres north-east of Bhopal, on the Malwa plateau. It is about 8 km from Vidisha and has a population of about 7,000 whose income is dependant mainly on the tourism generated by the place’s significance in Buddhist history. The tourists are those who come to visit the Vihara (Buddhist Monastery) atop the adjacent, 91 metre-high hill. 

Entrance to the Sanchi monastery complex

This hill was originally known as Vedisagiri (hill of Vidisha) or Caityagiri (hill of the monastery) and later as Bota Sri-Parvata. The monastery was known as Kakanava or Kakanaya in the 2nd century BC: this might be derived from an inscription on a pillar, Kakanaye bhagavato pamanalathi,  which either meant 'may the Buddha's blessings radiate always' or 'the Buddha's staff at Kakanaya' - the scribe may have been punning!

Visitors climbing up the hill

After about the 5th century  AD it was named Kakanadabota (probably meaning 'kakanada monastery'. Two centuries later, the hill was Bota Sri Parvata ('blessed monastery hill'). This became Santi Sri Parvata ('santi' or 'shanthi' meaning 'bright', 'shining' or 'peace', शान्तिः in Sanskrit). Through vulgar usage, Santi became Sanchi - सांची in Hindi.

Asoka & Devi
The Mauryan Emperor Asoka the Great was a convert to Buddhism. Sickened by the casualties (One hundred and fifty thousand were deported, one hundred thousand were killed and many more died from other causes) of his victorious campaign to conquer Kalinga (modern Orissa), he was receptive to the teachings of the Buddha. He then set about propagating Buddhism with all the zeal of the convert.

Prior to rising to the imperium, Asoka was governor of Avanti, one of the 16 Janapadas or settlements of ancient India. He married Devi, the daughter of a merchant-banker (vaishya-setti) of Vidisha, who bore him a son, Mahinda and a daughter, Sanghamitta.

Asoka and Devi, played by actors Shah Rukh Khan & Hrishitaa Bhatt in the swashbuckling, swords-&-sandals Bollywood epic Asoka

Mahinda was later to convert the King of Sri Lanka, Devanampiya Tissa, to Buddhism, while his sister Sanghamitta was to take to the island a sapling of the great sacred Bo Tree at Bodhgaya - which, planted in Anuradhapura, became the Sri Mahabodhi, the oldest recorded tree in the world. Both Mahinda and Sanghamitta are said to have begun their journeys from the monastery at Sanchi, where Asoka had built a dagoba, the earliest representation of a hemispherical stupa in India (earlier stupas appear to have been more phallic).

Socio-economic significance
Sanchi was in a quiet and secluded area suitable for meditation, while not being too far from Vidisha which (apart from being Devi’s birthplace)  was a rich and populous city, having a wealthy community of merchants and bankers capable of supporting such a large monastery. 

Sanchi's position on the main early trade routes [original at V & A website]

Vidisha was strategically close to the confluence of the Betwa and Beas rivers, as well as on the main trading route from the Gangetic plain to Ujjain (Udeni, the capital of Avanti - Ozene to the ancient Greeks) and beyond: to the Deccan in the south and the Arabian Sea ports of Broach (Bharukachcha - Greek Barygaza) and Sopara (Supparaka - Greek Suppara) in the west. It was along these routes that the artistic and cultural influences were exchanged, along with trade goods. 

According to British Archaeologist Julia Shaw, who did an extensive archaeological survey of the area, monks moved into the area armed with a culture of agrarian and urban production (including irrigation systems), enabling local communities to extend their economic support to new monasteries which sprang up in the hinterland of Vidisha; Sanchi may have been a 'strategic base' for missionaries of the new belief system.

Upper tank

The hill itself was the site of a rainwater harvesting system, its slopes forming a natural catchment area. It had three reservoirs or tanks, each above the other; gullies and drains collected rainwater and channelled them into each tank, and water flowed downhill from one tank to the next. The upper tank (a converted quarry), which provided water to the monasteries on the western slope, has been restored.

 The Great Stupa

The Great Stupa & southern gateway

Sanchi might have existed as a Buddhist monastery before Asoka, but he certainly embellished it. He erected Stupa 1, the 'Great Stupa', the main dagoba of the complex at the centre of the hill-top plateau. It was one of 84,000 said to have been built by Asoka to house the relics of the Buddha taken from seven of eight older dagobas.

Great Stupa, drawings done by Maisey in 1851

The Stupa was made with four paths and gateways, to represent a junction of four roads, since a stupa should always be erected at a crossroad. The stupa was surrounded by a wooden fence and had the gateways were of wood. The shape appears to evoke a swastika - a sacred solar symbol and nothing to do at all with anti-Semitism or fascism. 

Swastikas, Nazi & solar (courtesy: Temple Illuminatus website)

Asoka's edict pillar
At its southern end, Asoka erected a pillar, an example of the Seleucid-influenced Græco-Buddhist æsthetic style, with its exquisite proportions and structural balance. It was broken by a local landlord to make a sugar cane press - an early, oriental example of Thatcherism - and only the shaft stands here today.

Asoka's pillar

On the pillar was inscribed one of Asoka's famous edicts, which read (the opening lines are illegible):

'... path is prescribed both for the monks and the nuns: As long as (my) sons and great-grandsons (shall reign and) as long as the sun and moon (shall shine), the monk or nun who shall cause divisions in the Sangha should be caused to put on white robes and to reside in a non-residence. It is my desire that the Sangha may be united and of long duration.'

Note: The Sangha is the Buddhist 'clergy'. Read more about it HERE.

Lion-capital of the Asoka pillar

The rest  of Asoka's pillar is now housed in the Sanchi Archaeological Museum, including its capital, famous for its four lions standing back-to-back. This symbol, found atop several Asokan edict-pillars, was later to be adopted as the national emblem of India. 

Indian emblem (courtesy: Government of India website)

 The complete pillar was 12.8 metres high and weighed about 50 tonnes - a considerable load to transport from what is now Uttar Pradesh to Sanchi and then up the hill (even with today's heavy Tata lorries).

Continued: Sanchi - expansion & fall