Giriyak Stupa

Giriyak Stupa, also called Jarasandha-ka-baithak after the legendary Magadha king Jarasandha, stands in the Rajgir Hills of Nalanda district, Bihar, on the west bank of the Panchane River opposite Giriyak village. Its decoration follows the Gupta style of the 4th to 6th centuries, similar to the Mahabodhi Temple, and Alexander Cunningham, matching the site to Xuanzang's account, judged it to date from around 500 CE. Legend says monks built it over a dead goose's body, and Cunningham found a broken sculpture with a goose on its pedestal.

Today it is a brick-faced cylinder 8.5 m across and 6.5 m high on a square base 4.4 m tall. Originally a solid brick dome and a stone umbrella topped it, giving a height of at least 16.7 m. Cunningham cut a shaft through it in 1870 without result, and the ASI restored the wall between 2011 and 2016. Ruins of a Gupta-era brick temple lie nearby.