On the supports between the toranas are three stupas and a wheel (all aniconic Buddha symbols). The top torana shows the Buddha's relics being returned to Kushinagara, the middle the so-called "War of the Relics," and the bottom depicts Mara's temptation of the Buddha
Tradition records that after the Buddha's cremation the King of the Mallas brought his bodily relics (teeth and bits of bone) back to his capital, Kushinagara (left). Since bodily remains are usually seen as violently impure (religious contamination), this desire for the Buddha's relics clearly shows their regard for him. Here several jars are visible, with least one being carried in state on an elephant's back.
This shows the Siege of Kushinagara, part of the "War of the Relics." Tradition reports that seven rival clans--who all lived in locales visited by the Buddha--contested the Mallas' sole right to the relics, and demanded a share for themselves. When the Mallas were initially reluctant the other kings massed armies to attack the Mallas and take the relics by force. Good sense prevailed in the end, and the eight kings divided the relics equally. This panel shows Kushinagara on the left, and on the right the rival kings and their armies massed for the battle that never took place.
The lowest torana shows Mara's temptation. In Buddhist lore Mara represents all the world's desires and attachments--physical, mental, and psychic. In Ashvaghosha's Life of the Buddha (Buddhacarita) Mara perceives that the Buddha is about to attain enlightenment, and worries that his control over beings is about to end. In reponse he dispatches his "armies"--sensuality, discontent, hunger and thirst, craving, sloth and torpor, fear, doubt, hypocrisy, self-exaltation, and the desire for fame--to try to divert the Future Buddha, but the Future Buddha easily vanquished them on the strength of his past good deeds, to which the Earth herself gave witness. This panel shows that moment of victory with the Buddha (tree) in the center, a crowd of anxiously watching gods on the left, and Mara's fleeing army on the right.
The detail at Sanchi is always delightful. These panels were shot from the two ends of the middle torana (depicting the "War of the Relics"), and show combatants on the two sides.
