Sanchi Becomes a Landscape of Buddhist Memory

On a hilltop in modern Madhya Pradesh, the Buddhist complex of Sanchi preserves remains that developed across more than a millennium. Its origins date to the third century BCE, when the Mauryan emperor Ashoka commissioned the initial core of the Great Stupa, also designated Stupa Number 1. This earliest structure was a hemispherical brick mound erected over relics attributed to the Buddha. Ashoka had personal ties to the immediate region, having married Devi, the daughter of a merchant from neighboring Vidisha. Alongside the stupa, Mauryan builders erected a sandstone pillar bearing an imperial edict that prescribed punishments for monks and nuns who caused divisions within the Buddhist monastic order. Nearby, the foundations of an early apsidal hall known as Temple 40 were also laid during this initial era.

During the subsequent period associated with the Shunga dynasty in the second century BCE, the Great Stupa underwent a dramatic expansion. Workers enclosed the original brick mound in stone masonry, roughly doubling its diameter. The heightened dome was flattened at the summit to support three tiered stone parasols representing Buddhist law, and an elevated terrace and ground-level pathways were ringed by massive stone railings. These stone balustrades reproduced the joints and structural forms of timber carpentry. Rather than receiving uniform state sponsorship, the architectural additions of this era reflect collective and private gifts. Close by, Stupa Number 2 was established and decorated with some of the site's earliest surviving narrative reliefs, while Stupa Number 3 was constructed to enshrine reliquaries associated with the prominent disciples Sariputra and Mahamoggallana.