Sujata Garh

About

Rising from the village of Senanigrama, also called Bakraur, on the eastern bank of the Phalgu River in Bihar, Sujata Garh stands within easy walking distance of Bodh Gaya, perhaps twenty minutes across the river from that most celebrated of Buddhist sites. Where Bodh Gaya marks the moment of the Buddha's awakening, this weathered stupa of ancient brick marks the act of human kindness that made it possible.

The stupa takes its name from Sujata, a young woman of this village who, according to tradition, came upon the future Buddha seated beneath a Banyan tree after seven years of rigorous fasting and ascetic discipline. Her gift of milk cooked with rice revived him, and it was in the nourishment that followed, and the recognition that extreme mortification was not the path, that Gautama perceived the Middle Way, the balanced course between self-denial and indulgence that would become the bedrock of Buddhist teaching.

The earliest layers of the structure date to around the 2nd century BCE, a chronology supported by Dark Grey polished pottery fragments and a punch-marked coin found at the associated monastic complex nearby. Over many subsequent centuries the monument was rebuilt and enlarged several times, accumulating votive attention from successive generations of devotees and patrons. During the 9th century CE, the Pala dynasty king Devapala appears to have sponsored its final major phase of construction; an inscribed stone plaque recovered by the Archaeological Survey of India, during excavations conducted in 1973–74 and again from 2001 to 2006, bears the Sanskrit dedication "Devapala Rajasya Sujata Griha," meaning "Sujata's House, of King Devapala."

An Ashoka pillar once graced the site but was broken apart for building material during the nineteenth century. What survived was repositioned at the Gol Pather intersection in Gaya and later moved to Bodh Gaya in 1956. For much of the intervening scholarly tradition, the stupa had been tentatively linked to a different legend, the Gandha-hasti, or Perfumed Elephant, a figure from the Jataka stories representing a prior life of the Buddha. That association derived from the 7th-century Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang, who described in his 大唐西域記 a stupa and column at the spot where this fragrant elephant once dwelt. The Devapala inscription has since established the site's true commemorative purpose beyond reasonable doubt.

History

The earliest brickwork here is dated to around the 2nd century BCE on the evidence of dark grey polished pottery and a punch-marked coin recovered from the adjoining monastic remains, and the seventh-century Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang recorded a stupa and column already standing at this spot on his travels. The mound was enlarged and rebuilt across many centuries, reaching what appears to be its final form under the Pala king Devapala in the 9th century CE, a dating confirmed by an inscribed plaque, uncovered by the Archaeological Survey of India during excavations in 1973-74 and again in 2001-06, reading 'Devapala Rajasya Sujata Griha', Sujata's House, of King Devapala. An Ashoka pillar that once stood beside the stupa was broken up for building stone in the nineteenth century; its surviving fragment was moved to Bodh Gaya in 1956. Before the Devapala plaque came to light, scholars had followed Xuanzang in linking the site to the Jataka legend of the Gandha-hasti, the Perfumed Elephant; the inscription settled the question in favour of Sujata.

Significance

Buddhist tradition holds that it was here that Sujata found the Bodhisattva after his seven years of fasting and offered him rice cooked in milk, nourishment that tradition says opened his eyes to the Middle Way between indulgence and self-denial, the path that carried him onward to awakening at Bodh Gaya. Pilgrims who cross the Phalgu River from the Mahabodhi Temple to this quiet mound of brick retrace that same sequence, from the gift that sustained the Buddha to the tree beneath which he became enlightened.

Architecture

Ancient terraced brick stupa mound, built up across successive phases from the 2nd century BCE to the 9th century CE Pala-era reconstruction