The town
Two thousand years of history within a forty-kilometre circle. We will help you walk it.
— The Great Stupa, third century BCE.
Scroll01A short note
“A small thing well kept becomes, in time, a place. The stupa is such a thing — stone laid down with care and not moved since.”
On the Great Stupa
The Great Stupa was begun under Ashoka in the third century BCE and added to across the next four hundred years. The toranas — gateways carved with Jataka tales and the early symbols of the Buddhist path — are its singular achievement.
We are named for Sanghamitta, Ashoka's daughter, who carried a sapling of the Bodhi tree south across the sea to Sri Lanka. A small inheritance of welcome we hope to keep.
The site is open dawn to dusk. We can arrange a guide; we can also just point you to the road.
02Around Sanchi
Commissioned by Emperor Ashoka in the third century before the common era. The oldest stone monuments in India, UNESCO World Heritage since 1989. The four toranas — north, south, east, west — carry the entire visual life of the early Buddhist tradition. Within walking distance of our front door.
A short walk from the house
Twenty rock-cut sanctuaries from the early fifth century. The Varaha panel — Vishnu in his boar avatar lifting the earth from the ocean — is one of the great early Hindu sculptures. Quiet on weekday mornings.
12 km from the house
An ancient trading town from which the stone of Sanchi was quarried. The Heliodorus Pillar — set down in 113 BCE by a Greek ambassador to a local king — stands here, and the ruins of Bijamandal nearby. A market town with a long memory.
10 km from the house
Rock shelters with paintings spanning thirty thousand years. The oldest known art on the subcontinent — hunters, dancers, daily life. Plan a half day. Pack a lunch from the kitchen.
60 km from the house
An eleventh-century Shiva temple, never finished. The lingam inside is among the largest in India. The unbuilt parts — ramps, marked stone, half-cut blocks — are as interesting as the finished sanctuary.
55 km from the house
03Practicalities
Raja Bhoj Airport, Bhopal — 46 km, about an hour by road
Bhopal Junction — connections to Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai
Bhopal 46 km · Indore 200 km · Delhi 750 km · NH-86 throughout
October to March — pleasant, cool, the right season for walking
Hindi, but English is widely spoken
Indian rupee. ATMs in Vidisha, ten kilometres
A base for it all
A quiet room, a packed breakfast, and the kind of advice you can actually use.