From texts to a place on the map
For many centuries Sravasti existed mainly in books. Buddhist scriptures describe it as the capital of Kosala and the setting for countless discourses, but by the medieval period the city itself was not a known location. The work of identifying it was done in the nineteenth century, by combining textual descriptions with records of earlier travellers and with what could be seen on the ground.
The key written evidence comes from Chinese pilgrim monks. Faxian, who travelled in India in the early fifth century CE, and Xuanzang, who followed in the seventh century, both described Sravasti, its direction and distance from other holy places, and the ruins of the Jetavana monastery. Xuanzang’s account suggests that the city was already largely deserted. The distances and directions they give are not always precise, and modern scholars treat them with care, but they provided the main clues for later surveyors.
The identification with Saheth-Maheth
In the middle of the nineteenth century, Alexander Cunningham, then working for what became the Archaeological Survey of India, proposed that the large ruined mounds called Saheth and Maheth, on the Rapti river in present-day Uttar Pradesh, were the remains of ancient Sravasti. Maheth is the larger site, with the earthen ramparts of a fortified city. Saheth lies to the south-west and was identified with the Jetavana monastery.
Part of the reasoning rested on the location and on the pilgrims’ descriptions. Another part rested on finds from the site. A well-known example is a large image of a Buddha or Bodhisattva from the Kushan period, found at Saheth, whose inscription refers to Sravasti. Inscriptions that name the place where they were set up are especially valuable for identification, though they too need interpretation. Later inscribed material from Saheth has been cited as further support.
The identification is now widely accepted by scholars. That does not mean every detail is settled, and some earlier proposals for other locations existed in the literature before consensus formed.
Excavations
After the initial survey, further excavations were carried out in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The work of W. Hoey in the 1880s and of Daya Ram Sahni in the years around 1908 to 1911 is usually named in accounts of the site, and the Archaeological Survey of India has continued to study and conserve it since. Standards of recording in the earliest digs were not those of modern archaeology, so some findings are better documented than others.
At Saheth the excavations revealed several phases of brick monasteries and shrines built on top of one another, with courtyards, cells and temples. Archaeologists generally date the visible structures from roughly the first millennium CE, with earlier phases possible beneath them. Some of the foundations are given the names Gandhakuti and Kosambakuti in site labels, borrowing from textual descriptions of the Buddha’s residence. Whether a given foundation corresponds exactly to the building named in the texts is an open question; the names are better understood as traditional identifications.
At Maheth, the fortifications and mounds point to a substantial early city. Two mounds, often called Pakki Kuti and Kachchi Kuti, have been associated in local and scholarly tradition with stupas mentioned by Xuanzang in connection with the bandit Angulimala and the merchant Anathapindika. These associations are plausible but not certain.
How old is the city?
Archaeological layers at Maheth suggest occupation reaching back into the centuries of early urbanisation in the Ganges plain, in the same broad period as other well-known cities of the time. Earlier writers placed this around the middle of the first millennium BCE, in line with the traditional dating of the Buddha, but specific calendar years should be treated with caution, since the dates of the Buddha’s life themselves are debated among scholars. The cities of that age, Sravasti, Rajgir and others, grew alongside the rise of kingdoms in the region.
What remains uncertain
- Exact correspondence with the texts. Texts describe a monastery with particular buildings. The brick foundations seen today come from a long history of rebuilding, and matching them to the earliest period is difficult.
- Early phases. The deepest levels are the hardest to reach without damaging later remains, so what lay beneath is only partly known.
- Decline. The causes and timing of the city’s decline are not precisely established. Xuanzang’s account points to depopulation by the seventh century, and Buddhist monastic use of the site appears to have continued for some time after, but the details are debated.
- Traditional names. Many labels on site, including those for individual mounds or trees, follow later tradition and are not proven by excavation.
Why it matters for visitors
Knowing how the identification was made helps visitors read the site in a balanced way. The Jetavana of the texts and the Saheth of the archaeologists are linked by strong evidence, but a visitor is also looking at centuries of later building. This is a common pattern at old Indian Buddhist sites. A similar story of rediscovery is told for Sarnath, where the site was also pieced together by combining texts with excavation; see also the discussion of archaeological rediscovery more generally.
Pilgrims who come for devotion rather than scholarship can hold both views at once. The faith tradition does not depend on the details of excavation, and the archaeology does not need to prove the stories. Current conservation work, access to specific areas and any new finds are matters for official sources such as the Archaeological Survey of India, so check those before planning a visit.