The most extensive, and taking it altogether, perhaps the most interesting, group of topes in India is that known as the Bhilsa Topes, from a town of that name in the kingdom of Bhopal, near which they are situated. There, within a district not exceeding ten miles east and west and six north and south, are five or six groups of topes, containing altogether between twenty-five and thirty individual examples. The principal of these, known as the great tope at Sanchi, has been frequently described, the smaller ones are known from General Cunningham’s descriptions only;[72] but altogether they have excited so much attention that they are perhaps better known than any group in India. We are not however, perhaps, justified in assuming, from the greater extent of this group, as now existing, that it possessed the same pre-eminence in Buddhist times. If we could now see the topes that once adorned any of the great Buddhist sites in the Doab or the Behars, the Bhilsa group might sink into insignificance. It may only be, that situated in a remote and thinly-peopled part of India, they have not been exposed to the destructive energy of opposing sects of the Hindu religion, and the bigoted Moslem has not wanted their materials for the erection of his mosques. They consequently remain to us, while it may be that nobler and more extensive groups of monuments have been swept from the face of the earth.
Notwithstanding all that has been written about them, we know very little that is certain regarding their object and their history. Our usual guides, the Chinese Pilgrims, fail us here. Fa Hian never was within some hundreds of miles of the place; and if Hiouen Thsang ever was there, it was after leaving Ballabhi, when his journal becomes so wild and curt that it is always difficult, sometimes impossible, to follow him. He has, at all events, left no description by which we can now identify the place, and nothing to tell us for what purpose the great tope or any of the smaller ones were erected. The ‘Mahawanso,’ it is true, helps us a little in our difficulties. It is there narrated that Asoka, when on his way to Ujjéni (Ujjain), of which place he had been nominated governor, tarried some time at Chétyagiri, or, as it is elsewhere called, Wessanagara, the modern Besnagar, close to Sanchi. He there married Devi, the daughter of the chief, and by her had twin sons, Ujjenio and Mahindo, and afterwards a daughter, Sanghamitta. The two last named entered the priesthood, and played a most important part in the introduction of Buddhism into Ceylon. Before setting out on this mission, Mahindo visited his royal mother at Chétyagiri, and was lodged in “a superb vihara,” which had been erected by herself.[73] In all this there is no mention of the great tope, which may have existed before that time; but till some building is found in India which can be proved to have existed before that age, it will be safe to assume that this is one of the 84,000 topes said to have been erected by him. Had Sanchi been one of the eight cities which obtained relics of Buddha at the funeral pyre, the case might have been different; but it has been dug into, and found to be a stupa, and not a dagoba. It consequently was erected to mark some sacred spot or to commemorate some event, and we have no reason to believe that this was done anywhere before Asoka’s time.
| 8. Relic Casket of Moggalana. | 9. Relic Casket of Sariputra. |
On the other hand two smaller topes on the same platform contained relics of an undoubted historical character. That called No. 2 Tope contained those of ten Buddhist teachers who took part in the third great convocation held under Asoka, and some of whom were sent on missions to foreign countries, to disseminate the doctrines then settled, and No. 3 Tope contained two relic caskets, represented in the accompanying woodcuts (Nos. 8 and 9). One of these contained relics of Maha Moggalana, the other of Sariputra, friends and companions of Buddha himself, and usually called his right and left hand disciples.[74] It does not of course follow from this that this dagoba is as old as the time of Buddha; on the contrary, some centuries must elapse before a bone or rag belonging to any mortal becomes so precious that a dome is erected to enshrine it. The great probability seems to be that these relics were deposited there by Asoka himself, in close proximity to the sacred spot, which the great tope was erected to commemorate. The tope containing relics of his contemporaries must of course be much more modern, probably contemporary with the gateways, which are subsequent to the Christian Era.[75]
10. View of the great Tope at Sanchi.