Chaukhandi Buddhist Stupa

Chaukhandi Stupa is a Buddhist monument in Sarnath, believed to mark the spot where the Buddha met his first five disciples on his way to Sarnath. It is thought to have originally been built as a terraced temple during the Gupta period, later modified over the 7th and 8th centuries. The most distinctive feature of the monument, the octagonal tower crowning the earthen mound, was added in 1567 on the orders of the Mughal emperor Akbar to commemorate a visit by his father Humayun to Sarnath in 1532. Today the stupa survives as a high brick-faced mound topped by this Mughal tower, and it was formally declared a monument of national importance by the Archaeological Survey of India in June 2019.