POSITION AND PLAN OF SAṄGHĀRĀMA

From a defensive point of view the position of the Bhamāla monastery was an ideal one; for not only was it situated at the very head of the Haro valley among the Murree foothills, ten miles or more to the east of Sirsukh, but it was protected on three sides by the river Haro itself, which here sweeps in a sharp bend round its base, and on the fourth side by the hills, so that the monks could readily defend their home against small bands of raiders, or make their escape in the event of the city itself being invested by larger forces. The only real objection to the position would be its great distance from the city, which would make it virtually impossible for the bhikshus to do any daily begging in the streets; and in former days, when such begging was the rule, this objection might have been insuperable; but the Bhamāla monastery was not founded until the fourth or fifth century A.D., when the condition of monastic life in the North-West had radically changed and the bhikshus were residing in well-built and evidently well-provisioned monasteries, where mendicancy—except for form's sake—was no longer necessary.

The terrace—a natural one—on which the monastery stands measures some 400 ft. from east to west by 140 ft. from north to south. In the middle rises the solid mass of the principal stūpa, set round with a group of small stūpas and chapels, and to the east of it a rectangular monastery of a type familiar at Taxila (Fig. 14). To the west of the stūpa group were other ruins, doubtless belonging to a second series of monastic buildings, but on this side the terrace has been much eroded by the river floods, and what is left of these structures would hardly be likely to justify the expense of excavation.

MAIN STŪPA: DESIGN, STRUCTURE AND DECORATION

In its present ruined condition the principal stūpa still has an elevation of over 30 ft. Its plan is cruciform, consisting of a tall square podium with an imposing flight of steps ascending the middle of each side; and the more to increase its dignity, the whole is set on a plinth some 3 ft. in height, which in its outline follows the salient and re-entrant angles of the podium (PL xxi).