View looking towards the Dharmarajika Stupa, with the Jain temple in the foreground from the Kitchener of Khartoum Collection: 'Views of Benares. Presented by the Maharaja of Benares' by Madho Prasad, c. 1905. Sarnath is the sacred place where the Buddha preached his first sermon known as the Wheel of Law, the Dharmachakra, in the sixth century BC. The Dhamekh stupa marks the site of the sermon.The Dharmarajika stupa is attributed to the third century BC, but was expanded a further six times. The site is very sacred and one of the leading pilgrimage places of Buddhism. The remains here reveal a continous occupation from the period of Ashoka until the last days of the faith in northern India in the 11th to 12th Centuries.
The Jain Temple was erected in 1824 to commemorate the death of Sri Amsunatha, the thirteenth predecessor of Mahavira, the founder of Jainism.
