Mankiyala: pilgrimage and a sacred story

Mankiyala, near Rawat in the Rawalpindi area, preserves a monumental stupa and the remains of a monastic landscape. Pakistan’s Department of Archaeology and Museums dates its principal archaeological horizon broadly to the first through fifth centuries CE. Its account connects the place with visits recorded by Chinese Buddhist travellers, placing the monument within routes of religious travel across the region.[1]

The department also records the association with the Mahasattva Jataka, a story of the future Buddha offering his body to a hungry tigress. This is a sacred identification transmitted through Buddhist tradition. Modern investigation has its own chronology: General Ventura excavated the stupa in 1830, Alexander Cunningham subsequently surveyed it, and Pakistani archaeologists investigated monastery remains in 1968.[1]

Sanghol: a stupa built for worship

At Sanghol in today’s Fatehgarh Sahib district, the Archaeological Survey of India identifies a substantial Buddhist centre of the Kushana period. The great stupa’s foundations contain three concentric walls and radial compartments. A plastered platform and approaches from four directions organised movement around it. Such remains make worship visible through architecture, rather than through an assumption that every ancient mound had the same religious function.[2]

The inventory describes bone relics in an inscribed soapstone casket, interpreted as those of an important Buddhist teacher; it does not identify them as the Buddha’s remains. It also records a cache of 117 carved sculptures associated with the Mathura school. Railing figures and Jataka scenes connect this Punjabi site with wider artistic networks, while showing the importance of narrative and ornament within its sacred setting.[2]

Excavated objects become public heritage

The district administration dates the inauguration of the present Sanghol Museum building to 10 April 1990. Managed within Punjab’s cultural affairs, archaeology and museums department, it preserves and displays objects recovered from the site. Excavation and museum display thus represent different stages in the objects’ histories: materials once embedded in buildings or deposits became a collection assembled for public understanding.[3]

Sanghol’s museum account emphasises education through the excavated collection. Read alongside the archaeological inventory, it also helps distinguish the surviving monument from the sculptures and smaller finds presented indoors. Buddhist heritage in Punjab includes both these forms of preservation, rather than a single uninterrupted institutional history at every ancient site.[2][3]

Sources & notes

Source records include access dates and, where known, limits on what was examined. Checks used AI assistance; independent human or specialist review has not been completed.

  1. Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Pakistan. Mankiyala Stupa ↗government archaeological site record · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Site description; relative chronology; travellers, Jataka association and excavations. Accessed 2026-11-01.The specified passages were inspected directly. Claims are limited to the material available in those passages.Return to Mankiyala: pilgrimage and a sacred story, paragraph 1 ↑Return to Mankiyala: pilgrimage and a sacred story, paragraph 2 ↑
  2. Archaeological Survey of India, Chandigarh Circle. Ancient Site and Buddhist Stupa (Sanghol), record 127 ↗government archaeological inventory · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Printed pp.137–138, PDF pp.158–159; description and photographs of Sanghol. Accessed 2026-11-01.Scanned record was rendered and visually inspected. The relic attribution is retained as an archaeological interpretation, not an identification of the Buddha.Return to Sanghol: a stupa built for worship, paragraph 1 ↑Return to Sanghol: a stupa built for worship, paragraph 2 ↑Return to Excavated objects become public heritage, paragraph 2 ↑
  3. District Administration Fatehgarh Sahib, Government of Punjab. Sanghol Museum ↗government museum introduction · Source date: publication date not established · Locator: Main description: inauguration, departmental management and excavated collection. Accessed 2026-11-01.The specified passages were inspected directly. Claims are limited to the material available in those passages.Return to Excavated objects become public heritage, paragraph 1 ↑Return to Excavated objects become public heritage, paragraph 2 ↑
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Record PH-COM-0005 · English edition · human review not performed