Sanchi - expansion & fall

Continued from Caityagiri Vihara, Sanchi

Monastery 51

Sanchi has seven monastery buildings in total. The first appears to have been Monastery 51, which might have been commissioned by Queen Devi. Its thick walls were built with flat bricks, while charred wood remnants indicate that the superstructure was of wood. About 33 metres (108 feet) square, it consisted of a central open courtyard  enclosed by a verandah and flanked cells (kuti) for the monks to live in. Apart from the 22 cells, it also contained common rooms. It is situated west of the Western gateway of the Great Stupa, just beyond the upper tank.

By way of comparison, according to the Bible, Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem was 60 cubits (27 metres) long and 20 cubits (9 metres) wide, less than a third the size of this monastery.

The Great Stupa rebuilt

About half a century after the demise of Asoka, a Mauryan general, Pusyamitra overthrew his overlords and established the Sunga dynasty. Pusyamitra is said to have persecuted Buddhists and it appears that the great Stupa of Sanchi was damaged at this time. However, the later Sungas rebuilt it and erected Stupas 2 & 3. 

The dome of the Great Stupa was mounted on a high circular drum, with space for a path (pradakshina patha) meant for circumambulation, with access via a double staircase from an outer pradakshina patha at ground level. 

Elevation & plan of the Great stupa

The dome was flattened near the top and crowned with a square platform with railings on top of the stupa (harmika), and three superimposed parasols (a chattravali or chattra).

The Sungas were driven from the area by the Sātavāhanas, an Andhra family who started out as vassals of the Mauryas but declared independence. 

The Sātavāhanas were responsible (c 70 BC - 50 AD) for replacing the wooden fence-like enclosure (vedika - evolved from ancient Vedic villages) and gateways (toranas) with stone balustrades and elaborate stone gateways. An inscription on the Southern gateway reads:

Gift of Ananda, the son of Vasithi, the foreman of the artisans of rajan Siri Satakarni

(Satkarni being a Sātavāhana monarch).

Eastern gateway (torana) and balustrade (vedika)

They also added the gateways and balustrades to the other, Sunga-era stupas. The carvings on the gateways and balustrades were mainly of scenes from the life of the Buddha and from his previous incarnations (the Jatakas). The image of the Buddha himself was absent, but various sacred events were represented by motifs, such as the Dhammacakka (wheel of the Dhamma), the stupa, the Bo-tree, the Buddha's footprint and animals, like the horse named Kantaka, on which he left his home. The elephants on the Eastern gateway, for instance, probably represent the legend of the birth of the Buddha.

Detail of Eastern gateway (torana)

The carvings were mostly gifts by prominent citizens, who appear to have requested their favourite Buddhist scenes, and the artisans who executed them drew from the ordinary daily life of the period. As a result, the gateways and balustrades provide us with an insight into contemporary mundane existence,  including such minutiae as clothing, jewellery, tools, utensils and weapons. 

Guardian of the gate on Eastern gateway

For instance, the image of a guardian of the gate (dvarapala) in the panel below shows a soldier armed with a spear and a sword-scabbard. The spear has a broad head, with sharp sides for hacking with, as described in Kautilya's Arthasastra. The man is adorned with bangles and a niska or ornamental collar, and wears a dhoti, one end draped over his arm like the end of a Roman toga; evidently, he was quite the man-about-town.

Steppe dynasties, the Guptas and the Gurjaras
The Sātavāhanas were displaced by the Sakas (the Western Satraps), who conquered the area in the 1st century AD,  and later by the Kushans. During the reign of the Kushan King Vasishka (247-265) several inscriptions were made at Sanchi, including one found on the pedestal of a Buddha statue in the debris of Stupa 29.

Vasishka, from a contemporary coin

These descendants of steppe peoples were conquered by the Gupta dynasty. The Guptas embellished Sanchi with temples and statues, including four statues of the Buddha facing the four gateways of the Great stupa.

Buddha statue

By now, the representation of the Buddha by iconic motifs had given way, apparently under the influence of the Indo-Greeks of Gandhara (modern Kandahar). Read more about Buddhist aniconism HERE. It should be noted parenthetically, however, that there is a school of thought which considers that Buddha images antedated this period and that the aniconic theory is wrong. Read about it HERE.

Some history here, involving invasions and alternating dynasties. If you wish to avoid it, skip the three paragraphs below.

The Gupta Empire fell under the onslaught of Hephthalites, called Sveta Huna (White Huns) or Turuksha (Turks) by the Indians. A Huna king, Toramána, established his sovereignty over eastern Malwa about 485 AD. His son, Mihirakula conquered most of North India and established an anti-Buddhist persecution in 515 AD. Fifteen years later, he was defeated, apparently by a coalition of anti-Huna forces led by the Aulikara king Yasodharman, who chased him to Kashmir. A decade later, Yasodharman's death saw the demise of his empire and Guptas again ruled the Malwa kingdom.

The Guptas were in turn displaced by the Pushyabhutis, one of whom, Rajyavardhana, captured Malwa in 605 AD. On Rajyavardhana's murder, his brother Harsha came to the throne. Harsha or Harshavardhana was the last of the four great Buddhist emperors, the others being Asoka, the Græco-Bactrian Menander (known as Milinda) and the Kushan Kanishka.

On Harsha's death, his empire broke up, to be taken over by the Gurjara Pratihâra dynasty, one of whom, Nagabhatta I, conquered Malwa. Following several years of struggle, the Pala dynasty of Bengal displaced them in the area. They possibly ruled through the Paramara Kings of Malwa, who succeeded them sometime in the 9th century. The Paramaras held Malwa until the 12th century. 

Later development & fall
There were several upsurges of building and other creative activity in this era. To the Aulikara-Gupta period (6th century AD) can be dated one upsurge, during which Stupas 5 and 7 were built. Others occurred during the 7th to 8th centuries (after Harsha brought stability) and again about the 10th century. Much of this activity was in the form of rebuilding or embellishing existing monuments.

Temple 18

An exemplary monument is Temple 18, located just south of the Great Stupa. It is a Buddhist chaitya hall, a prayer hall housing a small relic chamber (chaitya is derived from the Sanskrit for 'a pyre' or 'a pile of ashes'. It is built like a classic Buddhist rock-cut hall of worship (chaitya-griha). 

Temple 18 - plan by Maisey

The temple consists of an apse, a central nave and side-aisles, immediately facing the Great Stupa. The temple was originally built on a raised platform in the Maurya or Sunga era. 

In the 7th century AD, the temple was rebuilt; the apse was based on the earlier foundation of the temple. It was surrounded by  a solid masonry wall and looked out on an antechamber formed by several 5.2 metre high square pillars and pilasters over which were mounted architraves, on which was fitted the wooden roof.

The temple was re-modelled in the 10th or 11th century. The floor-level of the apse was raised and carved door jambs were added.

Nothing remains of the small stupa which was at the centre of the apse and which contained relics, some of which were recovered by archaeologists in the 19th century.

While most of India became Hindu, in eastern Malwa Buddhism continued to flourish until the 12th century, up to when the monastery complex existed with the support of Vidisha, rebuilt as Bhilsa in the 9th century.

Reconstruction of the Sanchi ruins (from 'The Architecture of India' by Satish Grover)

After the 13th century, the monastery seems to have been abandoned and knowledge of it was apparently lost. This may have been because of attacks of Turkic Islamic rulers such as Iltutmish, who in  1234-35 led an expedition to Malwa, sacking Ujjain, Bhilsa and Raisen; and Alla-ud-din Khalji who repeated the performance in 1292-93.

Continued: Sanchi - rediscovery & restoration