Sanchi: Great Stupa, from south, Andhra Period

The Great Stupa at Sanchi was originally built by King Asoka as one of his many religious and civic projects at which time it covered a circle about 60 feet in diameter and was but a pile of rubble and brick, during the Sunga Period following the Mauryas, a brick casing was added and further enlarged until the mound measured its present 120 feet in diameter, With the Sunga additions, the shrine became the first true stone masonry (without binding cement) in ancient India, A final facing of concrete or plaster was added in the Andhra Period, and it is possible that the surface was then gilded with paint and gold, Unlike the Bharhut Stupa which was not really a hemisphere, the Great Stupa was a true half-dome, truncated at the top to support a summit terrace and 'Bodhi Tree' umbrella, Sixteen feet up the face of the mound, at the 'world of men' level, is a terrace girdled by a railing and reached by a double stairway on the south side, At ground level is a second processional path protected by the Great Railing, through which one passed by one of four gateways marking the four points of the compass, Each gate is elegantly decorated and bears a myriad of narrative scenes from Buddha's life