Great Stupa, Sanchi

Sanchi, Raisen District, Madhya Pradesh Buddhist stupa and monastic complex

Served from the stored corpus. Last scan Sep 29, 2026. Next scan Oct 29, 2026.

Photograph

Earliest republishable photograph in this record.

Northern view, 1885

Lala Deen Dayal photographed the Great Stupa from the north in 1885. This is the earliest republishable photograph of Sanchi stored here. James Waterhouse’s 1861–62 gateway survey is earlier and is not ingested.

1885 Lala Deen Dayal, 1885. Public domain / CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Source and license

View photograph

What changed?

Each line keeps the confidence of its source. Conflicts are not collapsed.

Survey photography precedes the stored print Waterhouse documented the toranas in 1861–62. This corpus stores a later Deen Dayal view because a republishable Commons file was available. The gap is recorded, not closed by guessing Waterhouse’s frames. 1861–62 survey known; 1885 print stored · Documented fact · Medium confidence

Evidence summary

Counts are records in this corpus, including gaps.

1 Republishable photographs

0 Interior photographs

0 Diagrams

1 Documents

About the temple

The Great Stupa (Stupa 1) stands on the hill at Sanchi. Secondary accounts attribute an early brick mound to Ashoka in the third century BCE and later stone encasement and carved toranas to subsequent centuries. James Waterhouse photographed the gateways in 1861–1862 for archaeological documentation; those albumen prints survive in museum collections. The earliest photograph stored here that can be republished from Commons is Lala Deen Dayal’s northern view of 1885. Waterhouse’s earlier survey prints are cited and not ingested.

Primary deity:

Secondary accounts place the Ashokan core in the third century BCE and the stone toranas around the first century BCE to first century CE. Those dates are not checked against an inscription edition here. The stored photograph is 1885; Waterhouse’s 1861–62 campaign is earlier and not ingested.