SANJI STUPA

 SANCHI STUPA:

           Sanchi, the stupa village, is situated 45 km away from Bhopal. The ancient trade route connecting Ujjain with rest of the ancient north India passed through it. In course of time few more stupa villages such as Andher, Murel-Khurd and Sonari sprang in the vicinity of Sanchi.

As one move towards Sanchi either by road or train one can see the main stupa from a distance of 4 km clearly visible amidst lush green landscape. The stupa is located on a hill whose height is 91 m (298.48 ft.) Over this sprawling hill majestically stood the main stupa with a commanding height of 71 ft (21.64 m) from the ground level to the original chatravali.

From the place where the ticket is checked, one can see the main stupa along with many recently conserved and excavated votive stupas. A thrilling experience to remember when one walks over the same place where Devi, wife of Emperor Asoka, and son Mahendra had walked over, several hundreds of years back. Imagine that two thousand three hundred years back thousand of pious monks and nuns might have flocked to this place in saffron robes for spiritual solace. It was considered so pious that many of them wanted to attain salvation here. Then, the whole area, the valley down below and mountains across it might have been reverberating with "Buddham Sharnam Gachhami." The place was sanctified by the visit of Mahendra, son of Asoka, who came to meet his mother Devi, perhaps living in one of the cells of the monastery located near Stupa 2, clothed in saffron cloths and a begging bowl in hand.

It was from here, Mahendra, embarked on the missionary journey to Ceylon for propagating the message of the Buddha. From Ceylon, Buddhism spread to many countries of South East Asia such as Burma, Java, Sumatra, Thailand and Korea etc. Thus Sanchi is the proud mother of Buddhism to many South East Asian countries.

James Princep, who deciphered Brahmi, the script of ancient India, which was a sealed book till 1837, got his first clue for decipherment of Brahmi from Sanchi inscriptions most of which ending with the word danam (gift). With this clue and insight he was able to read Ashokan Edicts, Pillar inscriptions of Delhi and Allahabad, coins of several kings and hundreds of inscriptions. Had Sanchi not offered him the first clue of Brahmi script much of ancient Indian scripts like that of Harappan script might have been a sealed book for us. For many years Princep worked in the wilderness of Sanchi copying the inscriptions and then every morning wishfully gazing at unknown alphabets which concealed the history of India's past. The decipherment was a great moment not only in his life but also in the life of the ancient world. But the outstanding scholar died at the young age of forty.