Restoring Afghanistan’s Largest Stupa

Bhante Dhammika of Australia

According to the Samyutta Nikaya, a group of monks once approached the Buddha and told him they had decided to travel to the western region and stay there for a while. He advised them to consult with Venerable Sariputta before leaving, which they did. Having told Sariputta of their intentions, he said to them: “There are inquiring nobles and brahmans, householders and ascetics who are likely to question a monk when he goes to foreign parts because such people are learned. They will ask, ‘Who is your teacher?’ and ‘What does he teach?’ So I hope you have learned the teachings well, studied, grasped, thought about and gone deep into them so that when you answer you will say what the Lord has taught and not misrepresent him.” Sariputta then suggested to them some salient aspects of the Dhamma that they could use to introduce it to people they would meet.

It is quite probable that the “western region” (pacchabhumam janapadam) that the monks planned to visit was what is now Pakistan’s Punjab region and parts of north- eastern Afghanistan, then known as Gandhara and that these monks were the first Buddhist missionaries to go there. Very early in Buddhism’s history Gandhara became a major center of the religion – works such as the Milindapanha (the Questions of King Milinda) were composed there, the monks who took Buddhism first to Central Asia and later to China were mainly from there, and of course the sculpture of Gandhara is still admired for its great beauty.

It has been estimated that there some 500 stupas in Afghanistan – all of them ruined, some no more than piles of rubble – but the biggest of them all is to be found near the village of Topdara some 50 km. north of Kabul, the capital. It overlooks Bagram where extensive Buddhist ruins and artifacts have been discovered. Almost nothing is known about Topdara’s stupa as most records were lost during and in the centuries after the Islamic invasion, and no inscription has been found in or around the stupa itself. It was probably built in the 2nd century BCE but why and by who is unknown. The dome of the stupa is 29 m. high and has a diameter of 22 m. and its drum is decorated with a row of arched niches each of which originally would have held an image. There is an impressive stairway leading up to the platform the stupa rests on and the circumambulation path around it. When complete with its umbrella atop its dome and its white painted exterior it must have been a most impressive sight. The whole side of the hill where it sits has other ruins as well – three monasteries each with a stupa, and a large mound suggesting a very large monastery with two stupas a short distance away at Qala-i-Khalifa. A small stream and a spring nearby would have provided the monks with adequate water and the site has a marvelous view over Bagram and the rugged mountains beyond.

In 1833 the intrepid British traveler Charles Masson visited the stupa and left a detailed description of it, including several drawings. He dug into it and found small bone fragments, probably what were believed to be relics of the Buddha. At that time no one knew what this and the many other stupas in the region were or were for, so thoroughly had Buddhism been forgotten by the Afghani people themselves.

In 2016 the Afghanistan Cultural Heritage Consulting Organization teamed up with the Afghan Institute of Archaeology and began a project to restore and conserve the Topdara stupa. The job was recently finished and now we have at least some idea how this grand monument once looked like.