Sonari Stupas

Sonari is the site of an ancient Buddhist monastic complex with stupas on a hill about 10 km south-west of Sanchi, near Salamatpur railway station in Madhya Pradesh. It is one of four groups of stupas within twenty kilometres of Sanchi, along with Bhojpur and Andher to the south-east and Satdhara to the west.

Alexander Cunningham and F. C. Maisey opened the stupas in 1851. Stupa 1 held a small soapstone reliquary, and Stupa 2 held three, two of soapstone and one of rock crystal, with some bone ash and a fragment of wood. The main casket, shaped like a lotus bud, is carved with elephants, horses, deer and winged lions in a style of the Mauryan period and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Its Brahmi inscriptions name monks who also appear on reliquaries at Sanchi Stupa 2 and Andher. Their ashes seem to have been divided among the three sites, which places the Sonari stupas in the same period as Sanchi Stupa 2, around 125–100 BCE.