Sarnath

• 1. Sacred Origins And Etymology

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  The name Sarnath derives from the Sanskrit word Saranganath, which translates to 'Lord of the Deer' in English. This title refers to an ancient Buddhist legend where a male deer offered his life to save a female deer that a local king was aiming to kill. Impressed by this sacrifice, the king declared the area a permanent sanctuary for deer. Gautama Buddha chose this specific location, known as the Deer Park by the Hill of the Fallen Sages, for his first teaching after attaining enlightenment. The teaching itself is entitled Dhammacakkappavattana sutra and occurred circa 528 BCE when the Buddha was approximately 35 years old. He convened his original five disciples Kaundinya, Assaji, Bhaddiya, Vappa and Mahanama within these grounds. Isipatana serves as another name used to refer to Sarnath in Pali, translating to 'the place where holy men descended'. The term isi refers to an accomplished and enlightened person, while patana means descent or falling. This etymological root connects the physical landscape directly to the spiritual history of the site.

• 2. Imperial Patronage And Flourishing

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  Buddhism flourished in Sarnath during the second urbanisation from the time of the Mahajanapadas through the Nanda Empire and Maurya Empire periods. Kings and wealthy merchants based in Varanasi provided crucial patronage for the growing religious community. By the 3rd century CE, Sarnath had become an important centre for the Sammatiya school of Buddhism. Chinese Buddhist monk Faxian travelled extensively throughout northern India from 400 to 411 CE and described seeing four large towers and two viharas with monks residing in them. When Xuanzang visited Sarnath around 640 CE, he reported seeing hundreds of small shrines and votive stupas. He also noted a vihara some 250 feet in height containing a large statue of the Buddha. Xuanzang wrote that there were about 1500 priests studying the Little Vehicle according to the Sammatiya school at this location. During the Pala period between the 8th and 11th centuries, rulers built new mahaviharas such as Odantapuri and Somapura while patronising existing ones like Sarnath. The Palas were the last major Buddhist dynasty to rule in the Indian subcontinent before being replaced by the Gahadavala dynasty.

• 3. Destruction And Historical Debate

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  Muslim conquests in the late 12th century brought massive plunder and destruction to northern India. Qutb ud-Din Aibak led his men from Ghazni to Varanasi and Sarnath in 1194 CE. In the winter of AD 1194-1195 Shihabuddin marched into Hindustan and invaded the Doab region. Rai Jai Chand moved forward to meet him but was killed during the Battle of Chandawar near Kanauj. Muizzuddin returned to India with 50,000 cavalry and ravaged Banaras where a large number of temples were destroyed. Qutbuddin Aibek reportedly carted away some 1400 camel loads of treasure. According to the 13th-century Persian historian Hasan Nizami, nearly 1000 temples were destroyed and mosques were raised on their foundations. However, archaeologist Giovanni Verardi argues that orthodox Brahmins accepted Muslim rule in exchange for the extirpation of Buddhism. Evidence indicates that Buddhists had been expelled from Sarnath during the mid 12th-century under Gahadavala rule before Muslim invaders arrived. The Gahadavalas built large Hindu temples in traditional Buddhist sites such as Sarnath and converted Buddhist shrines into Brahmanical ones. This suggests the destruction may have been driven by internal religious competition rather than solely external invasion.

• 4. Colonial Rediscovery And Looting

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  Very few Buddhists remained in India after their persecution and expulsion at the end of the 12th century by the Ghurids. In 1778, William Hodges became possibly the first British landscape painter to visit India and made careful observations of the art and architecture he encountered. He published an illustrated book about his travels in India in 1794 where he described the Dhamek Stupa but mistook it to be a ruined Hindu temple. Jonathan Duncan described the discovery of a green marble reliquary encased in a sandstone box in January 1794. The reliquary contained a few bones and some pearls which were subsequently thrown into the Ganges river. The bricks of the stupa were hauled off and used for the construction of the market in Jagatganj, Varanasi. In 1835, 1836, Alexander Cunningham conducted the first systematic archaeological excavations at Sarnath. During these excavations, he discovered and removed many statues from monastery L and temple M. By 1836, Cunningham had conclusively identified Sarnath as the location of the Buddha's first sermon. Sometime in the mid-19th century, 48 statues and a tremendous amount of bricks and stones were removed from the historic site to be used in the construction of two bridges over the Varuna River.

• 5. Archaeological Treasures And Relics

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  Friedrich Oertel conducted extensive excavations in 1904, 1905 focusing on the area near stupa J and stupa K. In March 1905, his team exhumed parts of the base and shaft of the pillar with its Schism Edict, lion capital, and remnants of the dharmachakra sculpture. Dating to c. 241-233 BCE, these are the oldest and most important relics discovered at Sarnath thus far. The Ashokan pillar was originally surmounted by the Lion Capital of Ashoka which served as the base of a large 32-spoke sandstone wheel of dharma. Both the lion capital and the wheel of dharma now symbolize the modern state of India and appear on the emblem of the Supreme Court of India. The Dhamek Stupa is considered to mark the location of the Buddha's first teaching and stands approximately 43 meters high and 28 meters in diameter. Its inner chambers had held reliquaries before being modified by Ashoka who in 249 BCE was recorded as changing the stupa while gathering and redistributing the Buddha's relics. The Sarnath Archeological Museum houses the famous Lion Capital of Ashoka which survived a drop to the ground from the top of the Ashokan pillar.

• 6. Modern Pilgrimage And Revival

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  The modern Mulagandha Kuty Vihara is a temple constructed by the Maha Bodhi Society that opened to the public in 1931. Wealthy Hawaiian philanthropist Mary Robinson Foster provided much of the financial support for this project while Anagarika Dharmapala supervised its construction. Dharmapala was a Sri Lankan Buddhist monk who was instrumental in the revival of Buddhism in India after it had been virtually extinct there for seven centuries. A standing Buddha statue 50 feet in height inspired by the Buddhas of Bamiyan is located on the grounds of the Thai temple at Sarnath. Construction began in 1997 and the statue was finally unveiled in 2011. A number of countries including Cambodia, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet, and Vietnam have established temples and monasteries in Sarnath. In 1998, Sarnath was nominated for inclusion on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization list of World Heritage Sites. Tourist arrival numbers reached over 1.4 million visitors in 2017 with significant growth from both international and domestic travelers.