Beautifully proportioned, the Great Stupa is the centrepiece of the monumental area, directly ahead as you enter the complex from the north. Originally constructed by Ashoka, it was enlarged a century later and the original brick stupa enclosed within a stone one. Today it stands 16m high and 37m in diameter. Encircling the stupa is a wall with four magnificently carved toranas (gateways) that have few rivals as the finest Buddhist works of art in India.
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
28.13 MILES
Step through the looking glass into what feels like an enchanted forest at this surreal place that is unlike any museum you will have visited before…
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0.09 MILES
Emperor Ashoka's 3rd-century BC Great Stupa, and many other stupas, temples, pillars, gateways and monasteries built in succeeding centuries, stand at the…
26.59 MILES
Bhopal’s third female ruler, Shah Jahan Begum, wanted to create the largest mosque in the world, so in 1877 she set about building the Taj-ul-Masjid…
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4.46 MILES
Cut into a sandstone hill 5km northwest of Vidisha are some 20 remarkable, mostly Hindu, cave shrines from the 4th century AD (Gupta period). The first…
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28.07 MILES
This first-class archaeological museum spread over numerous galleries includes some wonderful temple sculptures as well as 87 10th- and 11th-century Jain…
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0.02 MILES
The back-to-back lions on the pillars of the monuments compound's Southern Gateway (the oldest) were a favourite Ashokan motif and now form the state…
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0.02 MILES
The breathtakingly carved figure of a yakshi (mythical fairylike beings), hanging from an architrave on the Eastern Gateway, is one of Sanchi’s best-known…
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0.01 MILES
The Northern Gateway, topped by a broken wheel of law, is the best preserved of the toranas. Elephants support the architraves above the columns, while…
Nearby Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh attractions
0.01 MILES
Pot-bellied dwarves support the architraves of the Western Gateway, which has some of the site’s most interesting scenes. The back of the bottom…
0.01 MILES
The Northern Gateway, topped by a broken wheel of law, is the best preserved of the toranas. Elephants support the architraves above the columns, while…
0.02 MILES
The back-to-back lions on the pillars of the monuments compound's Southern Gateway (the oldest) were a favourite Ashokan motif and now form the state…
0.02 MILES
Of the scattered pillar remains, the most important is Pillar 10, erected by Ashoka but later broken. Two upper sections of this beautifully proportioned…
0.02 MILES
Pillar 35 (northwest of the Great Stupa) dates from the 5th century AD. Its capital, with a figure of the Bodhisattva Vajrapani, is in the Archaeological…
0.02 MILES
The breathtakingly carved figure of a yakshi (mythical fairylike beings), hanging from an architrave on the Eastern Gateway, is one of Sanchi’s best-known…
0.03 MILES
Between the Great Stupa and Stupa 3 is the small Stupa 5, unusual in that it once contained a statue of Buddha, now displayed in the Archaeological Museum.
0.04 MILES
Like its larger neighbour Temple 18, the Gupta-period Temple 17 bears a resemblance to classical Greek buildings. The columns on its porch are topped by…