Place · Buddhist monastic site · India
Sannati, Kalburgi
Also known as Kalburgi, Kanaganahalli Ashoka portrait, Sannati, Sannati (Kanaganahalli), Ashoka edict, Kanaganahalli, Sannati edicts
The 1st-century BCE to 3rd-century CE Satavahana Buddhist monastic site at Sannati in Kalaburagi district, Karnataka, 90 kilometres from Kalaburagi — a 70-hectare site with a stupa, chaitya and 25 excavated monastic cells. The site is unique for containing a portrait sculpture of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka with the Prakrit Brahmi inscription 'Raya Asoko' ('King Ashoka') on the base — the only surviving contemporary portrait of Ashoka in India (c.3rd century BCE execution, though the surrounding Satavahana reconstructions complicate dating). Discovered in 1994 by K.K. Bhan of the Karnataka State Archaeology Department. The adjacent Chandrala Parameshwari temple (modern 15-century) sits over the Satavahana stupa. ASI protection since 1996. The 2003 Sannati excavations recovered Ashokan rock edicts and major Satavahana coinage.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 16.800, 76.950
Worth knowing
Ashokan edicts and the Kanaganahalli stupa reliefs — including a labelled portrait of Ashoka himself — were found here.
Connections (2)
- Imperial inscription atPātaliputra
Sannati in Kalaburagi yielded a rock edict reused as a temple platform and, remarkably, a relief panel inscribed 'Raya Asoko' — the only surviving image of Ashoka identified by name. It is a Satavahana-period Buddhist site, so the emperor was still being depicted there centuries after his death, which is more than any of his own inscriptions attempt.
- Imperial inscription atMaski
Kanaganahalli's stupa drum carried a labelled relief portrait of Ashoka with his queens, the only inscribed image of him known, and a fragmentary Ashokan edict was found reused as a floor slab at the same site. Maski's edict names him. Between them the two Raichur-Kalaburagi sites give the emperor a name and a face, three hundred years apart.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Sannati”. E. Hultzsch, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum I: Inscriptions of Asoka (1925), and the Archaeological Survey of India site records.
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