Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c12.s3.t7.1

c12.s3.t7.1

On the plateau itself about fifty yards north-east of the Stūpa I is another monument called Stūpa III, which enshrines the relics of Sāriputra and Mahā Moggalāyana, the two great disciples of the Buddha. It is smaller in size; its diameter including the raised terrace but not the ground baustrade being 49'6"; its height 27' or including the *harmikā* and umbrella 35'4". The core is homogeneous throughout and composed of heavy unwrought blocks of local stone mixed with spalls (splinters). Apart from its size the only essential points in which Stūpa III differed from the Great Stūpa were the possession of one instead of four gateways, the decoration of its ground railing and the more hemispherical contour of its dome which was of a slightly later and more developed type. The ground railing has almost entirely disappeared, the work of demolition being done in ancient times to provide material for other monuments. There was a stairway with balustrade similar to that of Stūpa I in style, decoration and structural forms. There is only one gateway on the south of this Stūpa which is the latest of all the five *Toraṇas* at Sanchi and was added probably in the early parts of the first century A. D. The gateway is 17' high and is enriched with reliefs in the same style as those on the four gateways of the Great Stūpa. No doubt, it was adorned with precisely the same class of figures in the round including Yakshas Yakshiṇīs and horsemen, and the same characteristic emblems of the faith, the *Triratna* and *Dharmachakra*.