There are today fewer than 10 million Buddhists in India. Yet it once was the primary religion of the subcontinent. The Emperor Ashoka’s conversion to Buddhism was chronicled in stone at Sanchi Stupa and also on stone pillars found throughout India. Building in stone proves very useful later as we have Ashoka’s view of his times in a way we don’t from those who left nothing permanent behind. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This stamp comes soon after the site was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site. India had also named it such. This is progress as India can be fairly critiqued for not working to preserve pre Hindu heritage.
Todays stamp is issue A981, a 5 Rupee stamp issued by India on April 4th, 1994. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents used.
In the second century BC, most of India, except the southern tip was ruled by the Maurya Empire from what is now the city of Patna. The Empire reached it’s height under Ashoka the Great, who ruled from 268 to 232 BC. During his time the state of Kalinga, now called Odisha, was conquered. Doing so was very costly with estimates of 100,000 deaths and 150,000 deportations, this was when there were fewer than 170 million people in the world. Ashoka was depressed about the loss of life and converted to Buddhism. With the missionary zeal of a new convert, he had the Sanchi Stupa complex built to host his marriages and to safekeep the relics of Buddhism. The site was expanded later under the Gupta Dynasty, Ashoka also sent out monks to act as missionaries as far as Siberia, Sri Lanka and the Eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. Where ever they went were left stone pillars on which were inscribed Ashoka’s edicts. Over time the practice of Buddhism in India declined after the ruling dynasty converted to Hinduism and the practitioners were further attacked by invading Arabs and Persians.
The Sanchi Stupa was discovered in 1819 long abandoned but intact by a British Indian Army officer named Henry Taylor. For about 50 years after this British archeologists and treasure seekers took pieces away as trophies. Over time most ended up in the British Museum or the Victoria and Albert Museum. In 1869, Britain put a stop to the gradual looting and in the 1920s the site was reconstructed into it’s current status under Sir John Marshal.
From the period after independence the call went out to return the trophies taken from the Sanchi Stupa. Interestingly, the calls didn’t come from India but rather Ceylon and Burma, where Buddhism is still widely practiced. The return? to Ceylon of relics in 1947 was a major public event.
Well my drink is empty. Perhaps I should take inspiration from Ashoka the Great and have my stamp stories inscribed on stone pillars. That way later generations will learn about stamp collecting long after the stamps themselves are gone. Come again tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.