Stupa at Vaisali (Bihar)

Vaisali located in Bihar was excavated from the year 1958-62 by B.P.Sinha and Sita Ram Roy. This site yielded NBP ware and can be associated prior to Mauryan period. Vaisali was ruled by the Lachchhavis, after the demise of Lord Buddha they too got a share of the relic of Buddha and built a Stupa at Vaisali. This Stupa was rebuilt and enlarged several times; archaeologically it has been proven that the Stupa was at least four times renovated and enlarged with bricks till 187 CE Initially the Stupa was just a heap of earth.

On the basis of the potteries reported from the site, the site can be dated back to 600 to 550 BCE. The earliest Stupas were small in size made up of layers of piled up mud. These piled up mud layers were separated from each other with a thinner layer of kankar. The Stupa had ayaka platform, most probably one each at cardinal directions, prototypes of the ayakas of the lower Krishna valley. However only two of the ayaka platforms were found, of which only the southern one was intact; measuring 1.52 m in length, 34 cm wide and 15 cm in height.

From the robbers trench a relics casket made of soapstone was reported. The excavators opine that ‘it is possible that Lachchhavis themselves might have dug this Stupa probably to build more Stupas over the relics’ (Sinha and Roy 1969:22). The Stupa was build over a thick solid platform. Around the platform at a lower level the floor was smoothened might be for the purpose of circumambulation. During the third enlargement of the Stupa the flooring was paved with burnt bricks. The Stupa was enlarged with burnt bricks during the early Mauryan period; the enlargement was not uniform all around.

In the first quarter of the third century BCE the Stupa was badly eroded from the southwestern and north-western side, during the restoration work the diameter of the Stupa reduced from 10.46 m to 10.21 m. The Stupa was again enlarged in the second century BCE and now the diameter of the Stupa increased to 11.63 m. Last time it was in first century CE when the Stupa was restored after that it was left in debris.