Vaishali (ancient city)

Vaishali
Fort of Raja Visala, The Buddha's Relic Stupa of Vaishali, Asoka pillar at Kolhua
RegionIndia
Coordinates25°59′N 85°08′E / 25.99°N 85.13°E / 25.99; 85.13
TypeSettlement
History
Foundedc. 5th century BCE
Abandonedc. 600 CE[1]
CulturesLicchavis of Vaishali
Site notes
ConditionIn ruins
Pilgrimage to
Buddha's Holy Sites
The Four Main Sites
Four Additional Sites
  • Rajgir
  • Sankissa
  • Shravasti
Other Sites

Vaishali, Vesali or Vaiśālī was an ancient city and today an archaeological site located north of Patna in present-day Bihar, India. It is also a Jain and Buddhist pilgrimage site.[2][3] As an archaeological site it is spread over a group of modern villages located within the Vaishali District in Tirhut Division.[1][4]

It was the capital city of the Vajjika League considered one of the first examples of a republic that dates from c. 6th century BCE. Gautama Buddha preached his last sermon before his mahaparinirvana in c. 544 BCE, and Vaishali is also home to two important stupas directly related to the Buddha, the Relic Stupa of Vaishali, which is said to contain the ashes of the Buddha,[3][5][2] The 24th and last Tirthankara of Jainism, Mahavira, was born in Kundagrama which has been identified as a suburb of the city of Vaishali and he was therefore referred to as Vesālie.[6]

In 383 BCE the Second Buddhist council was convened here by King Kalashoka.[7][8] It also contains one of the best-preserved of the Pillars of Ashoka from the 3rd century BCE, topped by a single Asiatic lion.

The city finds mention in the travel accounts of Chinese explorers, Faxian (4th century CE) and Xuanzang (7th century CE), which were later used in 1861 by British archaeologist Alexander Cunningham to first identify Vaiśālī with the present village of Basarh in the Vaishali District of Bihar.[9][10] Since 2010, parts of the Vaishali archaeological site including the relic stupa and Asokan pillar have been considered a tentative site under the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list, in the category of the Silk Road sites in India.[11]

  1. ^ a b Prasad, Kameshwar (2015). The Glory that was Vaisali (From the Earliest Times to C. 600 C.E.). K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, Patna. p. 52. ISBN 9788189785062.
  2. ^ a b Robert Beer, The Encyclopaedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs. Boston: Shambhala, 1991.
  3. ^ a b Fogelin, Lars (2015). An Archaeological History of Indian Buddhism. Oxford University Press. p. 85. ISBN 9780199948239.
  4. ^ "Tirhut Division". tirhut-muzaffarpur.bih.nic.in. Archived from the original on 16 March 2015. Retrieved 26 December 2019.
  5. ^ Lahiri, Nayanjot (2015). Ashoka in Ancient India. Harvard University Press. pp. 246–247. ISBN 9780674057777.
  6. ^ Sharma 1968, pp. 159–166, The Nāyas.
  7. ^ Hoiberg, Dale; Indu Ramchandani (2000). Students' Britannica India, Volumes 1-5. Popular Prakashan. p. 208. ISBN 0-85229-760-2. Archived from the original on 4 May 2021. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  8. ^ Kulke, Hermann; Dietmar Rothermund (2004). A history of India. Routledge. p. 57. ISBN 0-415-32919-1. Archived from the original on 28 June 2021. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  9. ^ Janice Leoshko (2017). Sacred Traces: British Explorations of Buddhism in South Asia. Taylor & Francis. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-351-55030-7. Archived from the original on 27 June 2021. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  10. ^ Dilip Kumar (1986). Archaeology of Vaishali. Ramanand Vidya Bhawan. p. 36. ISBN 9788185205083. OCLC 18520132. Archived from the original on 27 June 2021. Retrieved 28 June 2021.
  11. ^ Cite error: The named reference UNESCO was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
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