Sarnath (also known as Deer Park,Maps of India, "History: The Mesmeric Deer Park of Sarnath", 16 September 2013Subham Mangsingka, "Deer Park", Times of India, 11 January 2017 Sarangnath, Isipatana Deer Park, Rishipattana, Migadaya, or Mrigadava)Gabe Hiemstra, "Buddha Chronicle 24: Kassapa Buddhavaṃsa". Wisdom Library, 14 September 2019. is a town northeast of Varanasi, in Uttar Pradesh, India. As the Lalitavistara sutra states, the Gautama Buddha chose "Deer Park by the Hill of the Fallen Sages, outside of Varanasi" for his first teaching after he attained enlightenmentSamye Translations, "Sarnath: The First Turning of the Dharma Wheel", Nekhor: Circling the Sacred in Bodh Gaya. The teaching is entitled Dhammacakkappavattana sutra. Sarnath is one of the eight most important pilgrimage sites for Buddhists, and has been nominated to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site."Sarnath struggles for recognition as heritage bid gathers dust", The Times of India, 19 April 2024
Sarnath is where Gautama Buddha's sangha first convened, when he gave the first teaching to his original five disciples Kaundinya, Assaji, Bhaddiya, Vappa and Mahanama, known as The First Turning of the Wheel of Dharma. This teaching occurred circa 528 BCE when the Buddha was approximately 35 years of age.
The buddha before Gautama Buddha is Kassapa Buddha, who was born in Sarnath to where he returned and joined his sangha of men and women in order to give his first teaching.
Several sources state that the name Sarnath is derived from Saranganath, which translates to 'Lord of the Deer'. According to Buddhist history, during the local king's hunting trip, a male deer (buck) offered to sacrifice himself to save the life of a female deer (doe) that the king was aiming to kill. Impressed, the king then declared his park would thereafter be a deer sanctuary.Khenpo Sonam Tsering, The Great Pilgrimage Sites in India, 2021Varanasi on Line, "Sarnath"
According to the Mahaparinibbana sutra that is sutra 16 of the Digha Nikaya, the Buddha mentioned Sarnath as one of the four Buddhist pilgrimage sites his devout followers should visit and look upon with feelings of reverence. The other three sites are Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha; Bodh Gaya, where Buddha achieved enlightenment; and, Kushinagar, where the Buddha attained parinirvana.
Sarnath is located northeast of Varanasi near the confluence of the Ganges and the Varuna River rivers.
The king was so moved that he created the park as a deer sanctuary. The term for deer park is in Sanskrit, or Miga-dāya in Pali.
Isipatana is another name used to refer to Sarnath in Pali, the language of the Pali Canon. This name corresponds to in Sanskrit. The terms isi (Pali) and (Sanskrit) refer to an accomplished and enlightened person. Isipatana and therefore translate to "the place where holy men descended", or "the hill of the fallen sages".
However, the presence of images of Heruka and Tara indicate that Vajrayana Buddhism was also practised there. Images of Hindu deities such as Shiva and Brahma were also found at the site, while a Jain temple was located very close to the Dhamek Stupa.
Buddhism further expanded in India during the Gupta Empire (4th to 6th centuries) period. Faxian was a Chinese Buddhist monk who travelled extensively throughout northern India from 400 to 411 CE. In his description of Sarnath, he mentioned seeing four large towers and two viharas with monks residing in them.
Although the Gahadavala kings were Hindu, they were tolerant of Buddhism. Inscriptions unearthed at Sarnath in the early 20th century indicate that some of the monasteries there enjoyed royal patronage from the Gahadavala rulers. For example, in a mid-12th-century inscription attributed to Queen Kumaradevi (consort of King Govindachandra) and member of the Pithipati dynasty of Bodh Gaya. She takes credit for the construction or restoration of a living quarters for monks.
It is widely asserted that the structure referred to in the Kumaradevi inscription is the Dharma Chakra Jina Vihar, but the evidence for this is inconclusive. Whatever the case, it is likely to be among the last structures to be built at Sarnath prior to its destruction in 1194. The inscription, excavated at Sarnath in March 1908, is currently maintained at the Sarnath Museum.
Muslim conquests in the Indian subcontinent in the late 12th century brought massive plunder and destruction to northern India. Most notable among these were the Indian campaigns of Muhammad of Ghor, the Ghurid dynasty ruler from Ghazni, which is in present-day Afghanistan. Qutb ud-Din Aibak — the commander of Muhammad of Ghor's army — led his men from Ghazni to Varanasi and Sarnath in 1194 CE. Quote: "In the winter of A.D. 1194-1195 Shihabuddin once more marched into Hindustan and invaded the Doab. Rai Jai Chand moved forward to meet him and came face to face with Qutbuddin Aibek, who was leading the vanguard of the invading army.... Shihabuddin captured the treasure fort of Asni and then proceeded to Banares, where he converted about a thousand idol-temples into houses for the Musalmans". Quote: "In 1194, Muizzuddin returned to India. He crossed the Jamuna with 50,000 cavalry and moved towards Kanauj. A hotly contested battle between Muizzuddin and Jaichandra was fought at Chandawar near Kanauj. We are told that Jaichandra had almost carried the day when he was killed by an arrow, and his army was totally defeated. Muizzuddin now moved on to Banaras which was ravaged, a large number of temples there being destroyed". Jayachandra (c. 1170–1194 CE) was the reigning Gahadavala dynasty king at that time and was killed during the Battle of Chandawar. Quote: "Jaichandra was defeated and killed by Muhammad Ghauri at Chanwar (40 kilometers east of Agra) in 1193". Virtually everything of value in Varanasi and Sarnath was destroyed or plundered.
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, the Rais and chiefs of Hind came forward to proffer their allegiance to".
While Qutbuddin Aibek destroyed Sarnath, it was the troops of Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji—another of Muhammad of Ghor's slave generals—that continued to destroy sites sacred to Buddhists. They destroyed Vikramashila in 1193, Odantapuri in 1197, and Nalanda in 1200. The Buddhists who survived in northern India fled to Nepal, Sikkim, Tibet, or South India. By the end of the 12th century, Buddhist monastic centers and their vast libraries had nearly disappeared from the Indian subcontinent.
However, according to some scholars, fresh re-assessments of evidence from archaeology in addition to historical records have disputed this view of Muslim invasions as the major cause of the decline of Buddhism in India or the destruction of such Buddhist sites as Sarnath — arguing, instead, "that Brahmin hostility toward Buddhists resulted in the destruction of Sarnath and other sites". According to archaeologist Giovanni Verardi: "Contrary to what is usually believed, the great monasteries of Gangetic India, from Sarnath to Vikramaśīla, from Odantapurī to Nālandā, were not destroyed by the Muslims, but appropriated and transformed by the Brahmans with only the occasional intervention of the Muslim forces". According to Verardi, "orthodox" Brahmins — who had been gaining in power and influence during the Gahadavala and Sena dynasty dynasties, the rival Hindu-revivalist dynasties of northern/eastern India — "accepted Muslim rule in exchange for the extirpation of Buddhism and the repression of the social sectors in revolt." Archaeologist Federica Barba writes that the Gahadavalas built large in traditional Buddhist sites such as Sarnath, and converted Buddhist shrines into Brahmanical ones: Evidence indicates that Buddhists had been expelled from Sarnath during the mid 12th-century, under the Gahadavala rule, and it already was in the process of being converted to a large Shaivism compound before Muslim invaders arrived.
India experienced an increase in visitation by European people in the late 18th century. In 1778, William Hodges became possibly the first British landscape painter to visit India. While there, he made careful observations of the art and architecture he encountered. He published an illustrated book about his travels in India in 1794. In his book, he described mosques and other Islamic architecture, Hindu temples, and Classical order. Hodges also briefly described the Dhamek Stupa, although he mistook it to be a ruined Hindu temple. Quote: "Surrounding the city are many ruins of buildings, the effects of Mahomedan intolerance. One is a large circular edifice, having evidently been a Hindoo temple, or part of one; there are still vestiges of some of the ornaments; and on one part I found the Grecian scroll".
In what is the first incontrovertible modern reference to the ruins at Sarnath, Jonathan Duncan (a charter member of the Asiatic Society and later Governor of Bombay) described the discovery of a green marble reliquary encased in a sandstone box in the relic chamber of a brick stupa at that location. The reliquary was discovered in January 1794, during the dismantling of a stupa (referred to by Alexander Cunningham as stupa "K" or the "Jagat Singh stupa", later identified as the Dharmarajika Stupa) by employees of Zamindar Jagat Singh (the dewan of Maharaja Chait Singh, the Narayan dynasty). Duncan published his observations in 1799.
The reliquary contained a few bones and some pearls, which were subsequently thrown into the Ganges. The reliquary itself has also disappeared, although the outer sandstone box was replaced in the relic chamber, where it was rediscovered by Cunningham in 1835. The bricks of the stupa were hauled off and used for the construction of the market in Jagatganj, Varanasi. Jagat Singh and his crew also removed a large part of the facing of the Dhamek Stupa, and removed several Buddha statues which he retained at his house in Jagatganj.
In 1835–1836, a 21-year-old British Army engineer with the Bengal Engineer Group named Alexander Cunningham conducted the first systematic archaeological excavations at Sarnath. He had carefully studied the writings of Faxian and Xuanzang, two Chinese Buddhist monks who travelled extensively throughout northern India in the early 5th and early 7th centuries, respectively. Based on their writings and those of Duncan, he conducted some careful measurements and excavations at Sarnath in 1835–1836. During the course of these excavations, Cunningham discovered and removed many statues from monastery "L" and temple "M", as well as the sandstone box reported by Duncan from the Dharmarajika Stupa. He presented these items to the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and they are now located in the Indian Museum in Kolkata. By 1836, Cunningham had conclusively identified Sarnath as the location of the Buddha's first sermon. In 1861, Cunningham became the founder and first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India.
In 1851–1852, Markham Kittoe (1808–1853) conducted further excavations at Sarnath. Kittoe noted the presence of four stupas at Sarnath and excavated a structure he described as a hospital, which was located roughly midway between the Dhamek and Jagat Singh stupas. He also recovered a seated Buddha statue from Jagat Singh's house and transcribed its inscription. In his writings, Kittoe speculated that Sarnath was destroyed as a result of a great fire.
Sometime in the mid-19th century, Sarnath was subjected to further depredations, as 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. Quote: "...in the erection of the bridges over the river Barna, forty-eight statues and other sculptured stones were removed from Sarnath and thrown into the river, to serve as a breakwater to the piers; and that, in the erection of the second bridge, the iron one, from fifty to sixty cart-loads of stones from the Sarnath buildings were employed". A final instance of despoilation occurred around 1898, when many bricks and stones were removed from Sarnath and used as ballast for a narrow-gauge railway that was under construction at that time.
Consequently, Sarnath has regained its former status as a place of pilgrimage, both for Buddhists and Jains. In 1998, Sarnath was nominated for inclusion on the UNESCO (UNESCO) list of World Heritage Sites of outstanding universal value to cultural heritage. The nomination comprises two groups of monuments: group "A" is represented by the Chaukhandi Stupa, while all other monuments (e.g., temples, stupas, monasteries, and the pillar of Ashoka) are included as part of group "B".
The sites of the greatest importance to Buddhist pilgrims include:
Sarnath has been an important pilgrimage site for Jains for centuries. A 17th-century Jainism manuscript describes a Jain temple in Varanasi as being located close to "a famous Bodisattva sanctuary" at a place called dharmeksā. This Sanskrit word translates to "pondering of the law", and clearly refers to the Dhamek Stupa. The current edifice—Sarnath Jain Tirth (also known as the Shri Digamber Jain Temple or Shreyanshnath Jain Temple)—was constructed in 1824. Located only about southwest of the Dhamek Stupa, this temple is dedicated to Shreyansanatha. The main deity of this temple is a blue-coloured statue of Shreyansanatha, in height, in the lotus position.
Sarnath is one of the locations of Rudyard Kipling 1901 novel Kim. Teshoo Lama stays at the "Temple of the Tirthankhers" in Sarnath when not on his pilgrimages.
"The Nameless City" is a fictional short story published in 1921 by H. P. Lovecraft. When the narrator of this story sees the ruins of the Nameless City, he "thought of Sarnath the Doomed, that stood in the land of Mnar when mankind was young, and of Ib, that was carven of grey stone before mankind existed." Lovecraft had previously described the fictional city of Sarnath in his 1920 story "The Doom That Came to Sarnath".
Other tourist attractions
Tourist arrival in Sarnath
In English literature
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Cited works
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