The Early Indian Society Was Seen In The Sculptures Of The Sanchi Stupa Complex

Sanchi Stupa is a well-known Buddhism monument,which is composed by gateways,stupa body,terrace,umbrella and so on.It is drawn public attention by the reliefs on the gateways.The most important features of Gateway's reliefs are the absence of Buddha's image and the presentation,which was represented through linear narrative and continuous effect,of Buddha's biography,including four major stories: nativity,enlightenment,sermon and decease,as well as Jataka stories and others.On the beginning time of building of the Sanchi stupa,the Ganges basin was experiencing agriculture-urbanization,kingship was transformed to centralized empire in Magadha,material and cultural exchange and interaction werevigorous in northwestern India.During the reign of king Asoka,the external conquest of the Mauryan Empire was stopped,and the national construction became the main policy.Asoka advocated dharma and support Buddhism to establish monasteries in order to absorb the people of marginalized communities into the mainstream societies.Taking the eastern gateway's relief “Victory over serpent” as an exemplar,this thesis aims at analyzing the different elements on the relief,including fire,serpent,Asura-Persian and Kassapa,summarizing the inter-relationships between different elements,and concluding that Buddhism was served as a social mobility channel to absorb people who lived at the periphery region to the mainstream societies in Mauryan times.The thesis includes five parts: introduction,main body including three chapters and conclusion.The introduction discusses the significance of the thesis as well as a survey of the previous studies on Sanchi monuments and people of marginalized communities.The main body includes three chapters.Chapter one introduces the Indian history and religious situation around the emergence of Buddhism as well as the foreign communication in Asoka's age and people of marginalized communities at that time as a background.Chapter two introduces the Sanchi No.1 stupa and gateways' reliefs in details,including the composition of the No.1 stupa and gateway,features and stories of Gateways' reliefs.The main part in this chapter is the detailed categorization of the story of Buddha's biography.Chapter three is the reinterpretation of relief “Victory over serpent”.According to historical information reflected by the relief,the chapter makes the conclusion that it exists three categories of people from marginalized communities-brahman anchorite,forest tribe and Asura-Persians.Such people could enter the mainstream societies by embracing Buddhism and thus Buddhism was functioned as a social mobility channel.The lastpart is the conclusion of the thesis.