Vesali

Vesàli was the capital of the tribal republic of Vijja and the scene of many important events in the Buddha’s life. The second Buddhist council was held there about a hundred years after the Buddha’s passing.

Today the ruins of Vesàli are spread over a wide area and the most important of these are a huge stone pillar with a lion capital, a large stupa next to it and another stupa nearby thought by archaeologists to be the very one erected over the Vajjian’s one eighth share of the Buddha’s ashes. Vesàli is 40 kilometres north of Patna, the capital of the modern Indian state of Bihar.

References

Vaisali Excavations 1950, K. Deva, 1961.