Entrance gate on the road to the Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi.
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
28.25 MILES
Step through the looking glass into what feels like an enchanted forest at this surreal place that is unlike any museum you will have visited before…
0.16 MILES
Emperor Ashoka's 3rd-century BC Great Stupa, and many other stupas, temples, pillars, gateways and monasteries built in succeeding centuries, stand at the…
26.71 MILES
Bhopal’s third female ruler, Shah Jahan Begum, wanted to create the largest mosque in the world, so in 1877 she set about building the Taj-ul-Masjid…
4.26 MILES
Cut into a sandstone hill 5km northwest of Vidisha are some 20 remarkable, mostly Hindu, cave shrines from the 4th century AD (Gupta period). The first…
28.19 MILES
This first-class archaeological museum spread over numerous galleries includes some wonderful temple sculptures as well as 87 10th- and 11th-century Jain…
0.26 MILES
The back-to-back lions on the pillars of the monuments compound's Southern Gateway (the oldest) were a favourite Ashokan motif and now form the state…
0.25 MILES
The breathtakingly carved figure of a yakshi (mythical fairylike beings), hanging from an architrave on the Eastern Gateway, is one of Sanchi’s best-known…
0.23 MILES
The Northern Gateway, topped by a broken wheel of law, is the best preserved of the toranas. Elephants support the architraves above the columns, while…
Nearby Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh attractions
0.09 MILES
This fine museum has a small collection of sculptures from the site. The centrepiece is the 3rd-century-BC lions-on-lotus capital from the Ashoka-era…
0.13 MILES
The preserved Gothic-style 'bungalow' of Sir John Marshall, director of the Archaeological Survey of India, who led the excavation and restoration of…
0.16 MILES
Emperor Ashoka's 3rd-century BC Great Stupa, and many other stupas, temples, pillars, gateways and monasteries built in succeeding centuries, stand at the…
0.16 MILES
The vihara (literally 'resting place'), just outside the monuments compound, was built to house relics of the Buddha's disciples Sariputta and Moggallana,…
0.21 MILES
Stupa 3 is northeast of the Great Stupa and similar in design, though smaller, with a single, rather fine gateway. It dates from the 2nd century BC and…
0.23 MILES
Pillar 35 (northwest of the Great Stupa) dates from the 5th century AD. Its capital, with a figure of the Bodhisattva Vajrapani, is in the Archaeological…
0.23 MILES
The rectangular Temple 31 was built in the 6th or 7th century, but reconstructed during the 10th or 11th century. It contains a well-executed image of…