Trip to Varanasi aka Banaras aka Kashi: Chapter 2: Part 5: Dharmarajika Stupa and Monolithic railing, Sarnath
Just near the Dhamek Stupa lies the Dharmarajika Stupa. There was a board over there which read:
Dharmarajika stupa was built by Asoka to enshrine the relics of Lord Buddha, at the time of its redistribution to enshrine them, in a number of other stupas at different places, it is referred, that king Asoka opened seven original relic stupas (But for Ramgram stupa guarded by the Nagas) and collected relics to erect thousands of stupas and Dharmarajika Stupa is one of them. As concluded by the excavations, originally it was a small stupa of 13.49 meter in diameter. Subsequently it was enlarged in six different phases, by raising the height, providing circumambulatory path-latteron shaped as medhi, with monolithic staircases at four cardinal directions to climb over it, as per available record this huge structure was unfortunately pulled down by Jagat Singh, a diwan of Raja Chet Singh, king of Banaras during 1794 AD in order to exploit building materials. In this trajic event a relic casket of green marble inside a stone box was discovered. The box is preserved in the Indian museum, Calcutta, where as the casket was thrown in to river Ganges. Later on during archaeological excavations, two outstanding images viz. the collosal Bodhisattva of Kusana period in red sand stone and an image of seated Buddha in Dharm-Chakra-Pravartana mudra, of Gupta period were also recovered from the periphery of this stupa.

Ruins of an ancient monastery:

Monolithic railing: This monolithic railing made of chunar sandstone, which bears the typical Mauryan polish, was discovered by Mr. Oertel during excavation in the year 1904-1905. Each side of this square railing measures 2.54 meter in length. Probably it was originally placed at the top of the Dharmarajika stupa . It bears two inscriptions of about 3rd century BC which refer to the teachers of Sarvastivadin sect.


A religious gathering:

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swetha:
nice very nice please publish watever u gone its to beautiful
3 May 2010, 11:53 amadmin:
Thanks swetha.
2 June 2010, 12:16 pm