01Turning the wheel
After his enlightenment at Bodh Gaya the Buddha walked to the deer park outside Kashi to find the five ascetics who had once practised with him, and taught them the Four Noble Truths and the Middle Way. Buddhists call it the turning of the wheel of Dharma. Around 250 BCE Ashoka raised a polished sandstone pillar here crowned by four lions back to back over a wheel. The Jains honour Sarnath too, as the birthplace of the eleventh Tirthankara, Shreyansanatha. Xuanzang, in the 7th century, saw some fifteen hundred monks here.
02Destroyed, quarried, dug up
In the 12th century Kumaradevi, queen of the Gahadavala king Govindachandra, built a great vihara here, recorded in her inscription. It was the last. The Ghurid armies that took Banaras in 1194 laid Sarnath waste, and the monks scattered. In 1794 Jagat Singh, diwan of the Raja of Banaras, dismantled the Dharmarajika stupa for its bricks and found a relic casket inside. Alexander Cunningham excavated from 1835, and in 1904–05 F. O. Oertel dug up the lion capital, broken from its shaft. On 26 January 1950 it became the State Emblem of India, with Satyameva Jayate beneath it; the wheel sits at the centre of the national flag.
The life of this place
- c. 250 BCEAshoka raises the lion pillar and stupa.
- 12th centuryQueen Kumaradevi builds the Dharmachakrajina vihara.
- 1194Ghurid armies devastate Sarnath.
- 1794Jagat Singh dismantles the Dharmarajika stupa for bricks.
- 1904–05F. O. Oertel excavates the lion capital.
- 26 January 1950The lion capital becomes the State Emblem of India.
The lion capital is in the ASI Archaeological Museum at the site (closed Fridays). Sarnath is 10 km from Varanasi; Buddha Purnima is the great day.
