History · Ch 4 — Thinkers, Beliefs and Buildings — Cultural Developments
How were stupas built?
How were stupas built?
The construction of stupas was a community effort, not just a royal project. The key to understanding how they were built lies in the inscriptions found on the railings and pillars of these monuments. These inscriptions record who paid for what, revealing a wide cross-section of society as donors.
Donations came from several distinct groups. Kings, such as the Satavahanas, made substantial contributions. Guilds — professional associations of craftspeople and merchants — also financed parts of the structure. For example, the guild of ivory workers funded one of the gateways at Sanchi. This shows that even specialised artisans, not just the wealthy, pooled their resources for religious merit.
The most numerous donors, however, were ordinary individuals. Hundreds of men and women recorded their names in the inscriptions. They often added the name of the village or town they came from, their occupation, and the names of their relatives. This practice tells us that building a stupa was a personal act of devotion for many people, not just an anonymous tax-funded project. …
Figure 4.9 shows a stone railing pillar from the Great Stupa at Sanchi. On its surface is carved a short inscription — a few lines of Brahmi script, the ancient Indian writing system used from roughly the 3rd century BCE onward. The inscription is a donative record, meaning it publicly documents a gift made toward the construction or decoration of the stupa.
The text on the pillar typically names the donor, often a layperson — a woman or a man — and sometimes adds their occupation, the village or town they came from, or the names of their relatives. In this case, the inscription is called a "votive" one because it was offered as an act of devotion, fulfilling a religious vow. Hundreds of such inscriptions survive on the railings, gateways, and pillars of Sanchi, and they are our most direct evidence of who actually paid for the monument.
What makes these records so valuable for historians is that they reveal a wide cross-section of society as patrons. The textbook notes that while some donations came from kings (like the Satavahanas) or wealthy guilds (such as the ivory workers who funded part of a gateway), the vast majority were made by ordinary individuals — men and women, monks and nuns — who chose to record their names for posterity. The Sanchi inscriptions thus show that building a Buddhist stupa was not a royal project alone; it was a collective, community-funded enterprise, where even a modest gift earned the donor a permanent place in the monument's history. …