this kind are given in Plate III., from the small dedicatory Topes now lying in the enclosure of the Great Sanchi Chaitya. age 20. From these remarks it is evident that the of almost every Tope may be obtained approximately from its shape; the most ancient being a simple hemisphere, and the latest a tall round tower surmounted by a dome. CHAPTER XIV. SÁNCHI TOPES. 1. THE small village of Sánchi is situated on the low ridge of a sandstone hill, on the left bank of the Betwa, about five miles and a half to the south-west of Bhilsa, and twenty miles to the north-east of Bhupál. The hill is flat-topped and isolated, with a steep cliff to the eastward; and to the westward an easy slope covered with jungul at the foot, and near the top broken into steps by horizontal ledges of rock. 2. The general direction of the hill is from north to south, and its whole summit is covered with ruins. But the principal buildings that now remain occupy only the middle part of the level top, and a narrow belt leading down the hill to the westward. The summit itself has a gentle slope in the same direction with the dip of the strata; and the level of the court of the great Tope is some twelve or fifteen feet below that of the ruined vihar and temple on the eastern edge of the precipice. The hill, which is about three hundred feet in height, is formed of a light red sandstone, hard and compact in texture, but subject to split. This stone has been used for all the Topes and other buildings where mere hardness and durability were required; but for the colonnades and sculptured gateways a fine-grained white sandstone was brought from the Udayagiri hill, three miles and a half to the northward. 44 3. The group of Topes at Sánchi is represented in Plate IV. The Topes are numbered from 1 to 11, and the other objects are described in the plan. Of these the most remarkable is a large stone bowl, now lying on a small mound between the two principal Topes. The interior dimensions of the bowl are— diameter, 4 feet; depth, 2 feet. The thickness at top is 6 inches, at bottom 18 inches. The size of this bowl agrees so closely with that of the golden vessel,* in which Asoka despatched the "cutting" of the great Bo-tree to Ceylon, that it seems highly probable the Sánchi bowl must once have held a sacred tree. Indeed I feel inclined to go even farther, for I suspect that this bowl once held the holy nettle which Buddha himself had bitten off and planted. But this depends upon the identification of Sánchi with the Shá-chi of Fa Hian, a point which I will now examine. 4. On leaving Ki-jao-i, or Kanoj, Fa Hian proceeded about twenty miles to the opposite bank of the Ganges; and from thence, he says, "ten yojans to *Mahawanso, pp. 111, 112. Asoka's vase was nine cubits in circumference, three cubits in diameter, five cubits in depth, and eight fingers (atthangula) in thickness. the south-west you come to the great kingdom of Sha-chi ;" and "thence, proceeding south to the distance of eight yojans, you arrive at the kingdom of Kiu-sa-lo, and the town of She-wei” (Ajudhya, or Audh). There is a difficulty in this part of the route which (I agree with Mr. Laidlay* in thinking) can only be explained away on the supposition of a misprint in the French edition, or an error in the original Chinese. Ajudhya is almost due east from Kanoj; and the direct distance is much more than eighteen yojans. Hwan Thsang is silent regarding Sháchi, although he travelled over this part of the country, and describes it in detail; besides which we know of no place of Buddhist celebrity between Kanoj and Ajudhya. On the other hand, we have the absolute identity of the names of Shá-chi, and Sánchi or Sáchi,† and the knowledge that Sánchi was a large Bauddha establishment, as well as the capital of a kingdom, at the time of Fa Hian's visit. The southwesterly direction is correct, but the distance should be about fifty yojans instead of ten. 5. The name of Sánchi, or Sáchi, is most probably only the spoken form of the Sanskrit Súnti: for I find the term Sánti-sangham (the Sánti community) * Fo-kwe-ki, c. xix. note 2-Mr. Laidlay's translation. It is impossible to conceive that any "great" kingdom, as Fa Hian calls Sháchi, could have intervened between the kingdoms of Samkassa and Kosala, or the present Mainpuri and Oudh. + See Journal As. Soc. Bengal, vol. xvii. p. 746. The name is always written Sátchi by my brother. used in the inscription on the southern pillar of the Great Tope. The Chinese also transcribed sánti by sá-chi; for they say that it signifies "silence, repose." This proves the identity of the names; but until the original text of the Fo-kwe-ki has been reexamined, nothing more can be insisted upon than the probability of the identification. 6. The story of the nettle is thus told by Fa Hian. "On leaving the town of Sha-chi by the Southern Gate you find to the East of the road, the place where Fo bit a branch of nettle and planted it in the ground. This branch sprang up and grew to the height of seven feet, and afterwards neither increased nor diminished. The heretical Brahmans, fired with envy, cut and tore it to throw it away; but it always sprang up again in the same place.' 7. The present village of Sánchi is situated on the low spur connecting the Tope-hill with the Kánakhera-hill. The village is now very small; but the numerous ruins scattered over the hill between Sánchi and Kánakhera prove that there has once been à large town on this site. At the time of Fa Hian's visit it was one of the principal places in the kingdom of Sanakánika. On leaving it by the South gate, the road led (as it does now) along the foot of the hill; and the great stone bowl was therefore to the eastward, as described by Fa Hian. *See Plate XIX. No. 177, for this inscription. |