Thinkers, Beliefs and Buildings

The chapter spans about a thousand years (c. 600 BCE–600 CE). It focuses on Buddhism, but stresses that no tradition grew in isolation: Buddhist, Jaina and Brahmanical traditions debated and influenced each other. The sources are Buddhist, Jaina and Brahmanical texts and a large body of monuments and inscriptions — above all the stupa at Sanchi. Religious traditions are presented here historically: what the sources say people believed and did, and how historians interpret them.

• Links: Theme Two (Asoka’s dhamma and inscriptions), Theme Three (Buddhist critiques of varna; the Mahabharata and the Puranas), and Theme Six (later bhakti and Sufi traditions).
• UPSC: one of the most-tested chapters for GS1 Art & Culture — Buddhism and Jainism, councils, Mahayana, stupas and their parts, Gandhara, Mathura and Amaravati art, Ajanta, Barabar, Ellora, Mahabalipuram, temple styles; Mains asks about stupa art, Gandhara and rock-cut architecture.

• Mid-1st millennium BCE: a ‘turning point’ of thinkers worldwide; in India Vedic sacrifice, the Upanishads, and many sects — Ajivikas (‘fatalists’), Lokayatas (‘materialists’), Jainas, Buddhists.
• Jainism: the world is animated; ahimsa; karma and rebirth; renunciation; five vows; Mahavira the 24th tirthankara.
• Buddha: anicca, anatta, dukkha; middle path; nibbana by individual effort; sangha with bhikkhus and (via Ananda) bhikkhunis; texts in the Tipitaka.
• Stupas over relics: anda, harmika, yashti, chhatri, railing, four gateways; clockwise walk from the east; funded by kings, guilds and ordinary donors.
• Sanchi preserved in situ (Begums of Bhopal); Amaravati dispersed; sculpture read via Jatakas, symbols (seat, wheel, stupa) and popular motifs (shalabhanjika).
• Mahayana (saviour Buddha, Bodhisattas, images); Vaishnavism, Shaivism, avatars, bhakti, Puranas; temples from garbhagriha + shikhara; rock-cut from Barabar to Kailashnatha.

The French sought the Begum’s permission to take the best-preserved eastern gateway to a museum in France, and some Englishmen wanted the same; both were satisfied with plaster-cast copies, and the original stayed. Shahjehan Begum and her successor Sultan Jehan Begum funded the site’s preservation; Sultan Jehan funded the museum, the guesthouse where John Marshall wrote, and the publication of his volumes on Sanchi, which he dedicated to her. Sanchi escaped railway contractors, builders and collectors, and today shows successful restoration by the ASI. Its discovery transformed our understanding of early Buddhism.

The mid-first millennium BCE is often called a turning point in world history: Zarathustra in Iran, Kong Zi (Confucius) in China, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in Greece, and Mahavira and the Buddha in India tried to understand existence and the cosmic order — at a time when new kingdoms and cities were changing life in the Ganga valley.

The sacrificial tradition. The early Vedic tradition is known from the Rigveda (c. 1500–1000 BCE), hymns to deities, especially Agni, Indra and Soma, many chanted at sacrifices where people prayed for cattle, sons, health and long life. At first sacrifices were collective; later (c. 1000–500 BCE onwards) some were performed by heads of households, and elaborate ones such as the rajasuya and ashvamedha by chiefs and kings through Brahmana priests.

New questions. The Upanishads (c. 6th century BCE onwards) show curiosity about the meaning of life, life after death and rebirth — was rebirth due to past actions? — and about the nature of ultimate reality; others outside the Vedic tradition asked whether there was a single ultimate reality at all, and people speculated on the meaning of sacrifice.

Debates. Buddhist texts mention as many as 64 sects. Teachers travelled, debating in the kutagarashala (a hut with a pointed roof) or in groves where mendicants halted; a winner gained the loser’s followers, so sects grew and shrank. Many teachers, including Mahavira and the Buddha, questioned the authority of the Vedas and emphasised individual agency — that men and women could strive for liberation — in contrast to the Brahmanical position that a person’s existence was shaped by birth in a specific caste and gender.

The basic philosophy of the Jainas existed in north India before Vardhamana, known as Mahavira, was born in the sixth century BCE. In Jaina tradition he was preceded by 23 tirthankaras. The central idea: the entire world is animated — even stones, rocks and water have life. Non-injury (ahimsa) to humans, animals, plants and insects is central, and has marked Indian thought as a whole. The cycle of birth and rebirth is shaped by karma; freedom requires asceticism and penance, possible only by renouncing the world, so monastic life is necessary for salvation. Monks and nuns took five vows: not to kill, steal or lie; to observe celibacy; and not to possess property.

Spread. Jainism spread to many parts of India; Jaina scholars wrote in Prakrit, Sanskrit and Tamil, and manuscripts were preserved for centuries in libraries attached to temples.

The Buddha’s message spread through Central Asia to China, Korea and Japan, and through Sri Lanka to Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia. His teachings are reconstructed from Buddhist texts; details of his life come from hagiographies, many written at least a century after him. In these traditions Siddhartha, son of a chief of the Sakya clan, grew up sheltered in a palace; on a journey into the city with his charioteer he saw an old man, a sick man and a corpse, and a homeless mendicant at peace. He left the palace, tried paths including extreme bodily mortification that brought him near death, abandoned them, meditated for several days and attained enlightenment, becoming the Buddha (‘the Enlightened One’), and taught dhamma — the path of righteous living — for the rest of his life.

Teachings, reconstructed mainly from stories in the Sutta Pitaka, show the Buddha persuading by reason rather than miracles — gently helping a grieving mother accept her child’s death instead of reviving him — in the language of ordinary people. The world is transient (anicca), soulless (anatta) — nothing in it permanent — and sorrow (dukkha) is intrinsic to existence. The middle path between severe penance and self-indulgence lets people rise above these troubles. In the earliest Buddhism, whether god existed was irrelevant. The social world was seen as human-made, so he advised kings and gahapatis to be humane and ethical. Individual effort and righteous action lead to nibbana — the extinguishing of ego and desire. Tradition records his last words as ‘be lamps unto yourselves’, each working out their own liberation.

A body of disciples grew, and the Buddha founded a sangha of monks who also taught dhamma. They lived simply, with only essentials such as a bowl for food received once a day from the laity — hence bhikkhus (‘those who live on alms’). At first only men were admitted; later women, through the mediation of Ananda, who persuaded the Buddha. His foster mother Mahapajapati Gotami was the first bhikkhuni; many women became teachers and theris (respected women who had attained liberation). Followers came from all groups — kings, wealthy men and gahapatis, and workers, slaves and craftspeople; within the sangha all were equal, having shed earlier identities. Decisions followed the gana/sangha tradition: consensus through discussion, otherwise a vote.

Buddhism grew rapidly because it appealed to people dissatisfied with existing practices and unsettled by rapid change: it valued conduct over claims of birth, and metta (fellow feeling) and karuna (compassion), especially for the younger and weaker.

Buddhist ideas grew through dialogue with other traditions — visible in how sacred places were chosen. Since early times people revered sites with special trees, unique rocks or natural beauty, sometimes with small shrines, called chaityas. Buddhist literature names chaityas and the places of the Buddha’s life: Lumbini (birth), Bodh Gaya (enlightenment), Sarnath (first sermon) and Kusinagara (nibbana). About 200 years after the Buddha, Asoka erected a pillar at Lumbini to mark his visit.

Why stupas? Places where relics of the Buddha — bodily remains or objects he used — were buried became sacred mounds, stupas. The tradition may have been pre-Buddhist, but stupas came to be venerated as emblems of the Buddha and Buddhism. The Ashokavadana says Asoka distributed the relics to every important town and ordered stupas built over them. By the second century BCE there were stupas at Bharhut, Sanchi and Sarnath.

How were they built? Inscriptions on railings and pillars record donations. Some came from kings such as the Satavahanas; some from guilds, like the ivory workers who financed part of a Sanchi gateway; hundreds from women and men who gave their names, home towns, occupations and relatives; and from bhikkhus and bhikkhunis.

Structure. The stupa (Sanskrit, ‘heap’) began as a simple hemispherical mound, later called the anda, and evolved into a balance of round and square shapes. Above the anda was the harmika, a balcony-like structure representing the abode of the gods; from it rose a mast, the yashti, often topped by a chhatri (umbrella). A railing around the mound separated the sacred from the secular. The early stupas at Sanchi and Bharhut were plain except for stone railings resembling a bamboo or wooden fence, and richly carved gateways at the four cardinal points. Worshippers entered by the eastern gateway and walked clockwise, keeping the mound on the right, following the sun. Later mounds were elaborately carved, as at Amaravati and Shah-ji-ki-Dheri (Peshawar).

In 1796 a local raja building a temple stumbled on the ruins of the Amaravati stupa, decided to use its stone and hunted for treasure. Some years later Colin Mackenzie visited, found sculptures and drew them, but never published his reports. In 1854 Walter Elliot, commissioner of Guntur, took panels to Madras (the ‘Elliot marbles’), found remains of the western gateway and judged Amaravati one of the largest, most magnificent stupas ever built. By the 1850s slabs went to the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta, the India Office in Madras and even London; some decorated officials’ gardens; each new official took more because predecessors had. H.H. Cole called it suicidal and indefensible to let the country be looted of original works; he wanted plaster casts in museums and originals in situ — rejected for Amaravati, adopted for Sanchi.

Why did Sanchi survive? Amaravati was discovered before scholars understood the value of keeping finds in place. When Sanchi was ‘discovered’ in 1818, three of its four gateways still stood, the fourth lay where it had fallen, and the mound was in good condition; although proposals were made to take a gateway to Paris or London, a combination of factors — including the Begums’ role (section 1) — kept it intact. Amaravati’s great stupa (mahachaitya) is now an insignificant little mound.

Stories in stone. Like wandering storytellers who unroll painted scrolls (charanachitras), the carved crossbeams seem to unfold a narrative. A panel on the northern gateway that looks like a rural scene of huts and trees is identified as the Vessantara Jataka — a generous prince who gave everything to a Brahmana and went to live in the forest with his wife and children. Historians understand sculpture by comparing it with texts.

Symbols of worship. Many early sculptors did not show the Buddha in human form. The empty seat under the tree indicated his meditation; the stupa his mahaparinibbana; the wheel the first sermon at Sarnath. Such sculptures cannot be read literally: the tree stands for an event in the Buddha’s life.

Popular traditions. Some sculptures were not directly inspired by Buddhist ideas. A beautiful woman swinging from the edge of a gateway, holding a tree, puzzled scholars until they recognised the shalabhanjika, a woman whose touch, in popular belief, made trees flower and fruit — probably an auspicious symbol. Many who turned to Buddhism enriched it with pre-Buddhist and non-Buddhist beliefs. Sanchi also has superb animals — elephants, horses, monkeys, cattle — some from Jataka stories, many to enliven scenes, and some as symbols (elephants for strength and wisdom). A woman surrounded by lotuses and elephants sprinkling water on her (abhisheka) is identified by some as Maya, the Buddha’s mother, by others as the goddess Gajalakshmi — and devotees may have seen both. The serpent on several pillars seems to come from popular traditions not always recorded in texts. James Fergusson, unfamiliar with the then mostly untranslated Buddhist literature, read the images alone and called Sanchi a centre of tree and serpent worship.

Mahayana. By the first century CE, Buddhist ideas changed. Early teaching stressed self-effort to reach nibbana and saw the Buddha as a human who attained it by his own effort. Gradually the idea of a saviour emerged, along with Bodhisattas — compassionate beings who accumulated merit not to leave the world but to help others. Images of the Buddha and Bodhisattas became central. This was Mahayana (‘great vehicle’); its followers called the older tradition Hinayana (‘lesser vehicle’), while the older tradition called itself Theravada — the path of the respected old teachers (theras).

Puranic Hinduism. The notion of a saviour also grew, in different ways, in traditions now considered part of Hinduism: Vaishnavism (Vishnu as principal deity) and Shaivism (Shiva as chief god), with worship of a chosen deity bound by love and devotion — bhakti. Vaishnava cults grew around ten avatars, forms the deity took to save the world when evil threatened; different avatars were probably popular in different regions, and recognising local deities as forms of Vishnu helped create a more unified tradition. Shiva was symbolised by the linga, and occasionally in human form. Sculptures expressed ideas through head-dresses, ornaments, ayudhas (weapons or auspicious objects held) and postures. Their stories are in the Puranas, compiled by Brahmanas by about the middle of the first millennium CE, mostly in simple Sanskrit verse, meant to be read aloud to everybody, including women and Shudras who had no access to Vedic learning. Much Puranic material grew from interaction among priests, merchants and ordinary travellers; Vasudeva-Krishna, important in the Mathura region, spread over centuries to other regions.

Temples. As stupas reached their present form, the first temples to house images were built. The early temple was a small square room, the garbhagriha, with a single doorway; gradually a tall shikhara rose over the shrine; walls were decorated with sculpture; later temples added assembly halls, huge walls, gateways and water supply. Some were hollowed out of rock as artificial caves — an old tradition: some of the earliest were made in the third century BCE on Asoka’s orders for Ajivika renouncers. It culminated in the 8th century in the carving of an entire temple, the Kailashnatha at Ellora; a copperplate records the chief sculptor’s amazement: ‘Oh how did I make it!’

Much has been lost, but what survives conveys the vision of artists, sculptors, masons and architects. Yet can we know what images meant to people 2,000 years ago? Nineteenth-century European scholars were sometimes baffled or horrified by images with many arms and heads or human-animal forms, and compared them with Greek sculpture, finding Indian work inferior — except images of the Buddha and Bodhisattas evidently based on Greek models, found in the north-west at Taxila and Peshawar where Indo-Greek kingdoms had arisen in the 2nd century BCE, which they hailed as the best early Indian art. They used a yardstick from the familiar to judge the unfamiliar.

If text and image do not match. Using texts is better than Greek comparisons, but not always easy. A huge rock-cut panel at Mahabalipuram clearly tells a story — but which? Some art historians see the descent of the Ganga from heaven, the natural cleft in the rock as the river; others see Arjuna’s penance on the river bank to obtain weapons (from the Mahabharata), pointing to the central ascetic.

Finally, many rituals, beliefs and practices — daily and festive — were never recorded in lasting form. Many communities did not feel the need to, even with vibrant religious lives and ideas. The spectacular monuments are only the tip of the iceberg.

Q1–5: 100–150 words. Q6–9: short essays of about 500 words. Try each first.

Numbers

One-liners

• Ajivikas = fatalists (Gosala); Lokayatas = materialists (Ajita) — known only through rivals.
• Jainism: everything is alive; ahimsa; five vows; renunciation.
• Buddhism: anicca, anatta, dukkha; middle path; nibbana by self-effort.
• Sangha: equality inside; consensus or vote; women admitted through Ananda.
• Stupa parts: anda, harmika, yashti, chhatri, railing, gateways.
• Enter from the east; walk clockwise.
• Empty seat = meditation; wheel = first sermon; stupa = mahaparinibbana.
• Sanchi kept in situ; Amaravati dispersed.
• Mahayana: saviour Buddha, Bodhisattas, images.
• Temple = garbhagriha + shikhara; rock-cut from Barabar to Ellora.

Traps to avoid

• NCERT places the compilation council at Vesali; the standard First Council was at Rajagaha (UPSC 1990).
• Barabar caves: Asoka for the Ajivikas — not Chandragupta (UPSC 2013).
• The Therigatha is Buddhist, not Jaina (UPSC 1996).
• The ‘middle path’ is Buddhist only; Jainism stresses severe penance.
• ‘Hinayana’ is the Mahayana label; the older school called itself Theravada.
• Gandhara = schist; Mathura = red sandstone; Amaravati = pale limestone.
• Stupas may be pre-Buddhist in origin (UPSC 2023 key).
• Gajalakshmi or Maya? Mahabalipuram: Ganga’s descent or Arjuna’s penance? — debated readings.
• Ajanta’s later caves and paintings: Vakataka patronage, though UPSC keys say ‘Guptas’.
• NCERT dates the Mahabalipuram Durga to the 6th century; Pallava monuments there are usually 7th century.

Prelims — what UPSC asks

• Buddhism: places of the Buddha’s life (1980, 1985, 2014, 2015), councils (1986, 1990, 2001), Mahayana vs Hinayana and Bodhisattvas (1991, 1993, 1994, 2016, 2019, 2020), nirvana and teachings (1998, 2013, 2024), mudras and symbols (1994, 2012, 2026), sangha terms (2020), Kanishka (1980).
• Jainism: tirthankaras and vows (1991, 1993), doctrines (1993, 1995, 2009, 2011, 2013, 2023, 2026), Jainism vs Buddhism (1989, 1996, 2000, 2012), Therigatha not Jaina (1996). Other schools: Charvakas (1994), six systems (2014), Vedic religion (1984, 2012), Upanishads before Puranas (2024).
• Art and architecture: stupas (2023, 2026 Amaravati, 1987), chaitya vs vihara (1989, 1992, 2013), Gandhara, Mathura and their media (1986, 1988, 1989, 1992, 1996, 1998, 2001), Ajanta (1980, 1984, 1992, 2016, 2017, 2021), Barabar (2013), Ellora and Mahabalipuram (1982, 1983, 1994), Deogarh and Nagara shikhara (1997, 2026), Dhanyakataka (2023).

Mains — where it appears and how to answer

• GS1 2016: early Buddhist stupa art depicts folk motifs and narratives yet expounds Buddhist ideals — use section 8: Jatakas (Vessantara), symbols, shalabhanjika, Gajalakshmi/Maya, animals, donors.
• GS1 2014 and 2019: Gandhara’s Roman, Greek, Central Asian and Greco-Bactrian elements — use the comparison table; stress Indian iconography in foreign style.
• GS1 2020: rock-cut architecture as a source of art and history — Barabar (Ajivikas, Asoka), Buddhist chaityas and viharas (Ajanta, Karle), Ellora’s three faiths, Kailashnatha, Mahabalipuram; what they reveal about patrons, beliefs and techniques.
• Frame: monument → who built and paid (inscriptions) → what it shows (texts, symbols, popular motifs) → how it survived (preservation history).

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