A ground-penetrating radar survey at Ujjain’s Vaishya Tekri has reopened the possibility of studying one of central India’s most significant ancient Buddhist monuments without immediately disturbing the mound. The Archaeological Survey of India, Madhya Pradesh’s archaeology department and the Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal, have joined hands to map what survives beneath the site before any fresh excavation is considered.
The survey is important not simply because it revisits an old archaeological question, but because it marks a change in how that question is being approached. The earlier investigation, undertaken nearly nine decades ago, used radiating trenches and was abandoned after a reported gas leak caused some labourers to lose consciousness. The latest exercise begins with subsurface mapping rather than excavation, allowing officials and archaeologists to identify possible buried structures and soil changes before selecting locations for any intrusive work.
That sequence reflects the central challenge at Vaishya Tekri: the site is potentially exceptional, but the available evidence is incomplete. The Annual Administration Report of the Archaeological Department of Gwalior State for 1938-39 described the mound as a large circular structure surrounded by a rectangular depression. Partial excavation exposed a main stupa and the remains of two smaller stupas. The report called the principal structure “perhaps the biggest known” and described its construction as unlike anything encountered elsewhere.
The dimensions recorded in that report explain the continuing interest. The stupa was estimated at around 350 feet in diameter and at least 100 feet high. By comparison, Sanchi’s Great Stupa was recorded in the supplied report at about 120 feet in diameter and 54 feet high. The Vaishya Tekri structure was dated to the Mauryan period, around the third century BCE, based partly on its construction, unusually large bricks and the discovery of a punch-marked coin and an Avanti coin.
Those measurements should not be treated as a complete description of the monument as it originally stood. The earlier excavation found that much of the outer brick facing had disappeared and that the top of the mound appeared to have been washed away. The precise original plan and elevation therefore remained uncertain. The stupa’s core consisted of tightly rammed local murum, while its outer facing used large bricks laid in mud mortar. A new survey could help determine which parts of this arrangement remain below the surface and whether additional structures are associated with the mound.
This is where ground-penetrating radar becomes significant. GPR uses high-frequency radio waves to detect buried structures, objects and changes in soil layers without excavation. At Vaishya Tekri, the technology is being used to create a clearer subsurface picture before officials decide whether and where to dig. MANIT is providing technical support for the survey and analysis of the data, while the ASI and the state archaeology department remain responsible for the archaeological and administrative process.
The method cannot, by itself, settle every question surrounding the site. Radar data may indicate anomalies or changes beneath the mound, but excavation and archaeological interpretation would still be needed to establish the character, date and relationship of buried features. The current exercise is therefore best understood as a decision-making stage: it can narrow the areas of interest and reduce unnecessary disturbance, but it does not amount to a full excavation or a final confirmation of the monument’s historical associations.
Those associations are part of what makes the site unusually important. The mound has been linked to Kanakgiri Vihara, mentioned in ancient Buddhist literature, and possibly to the large stupa described by the Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang in his account of Ujjain. The earlier report also suggested that the structure could have been among those attributed to Emperor Ashoka. None of these connections has been conclusively established archaeologically, and the distinction matters. Vaishya Tekri’s significance rests on a combination of physical evidence, historical references and unresolved possibilities, not on a single confirmed identification.
The institutional history behind the renewed study is equally revealing. According to Nandini Bhattacharya Sahu, Joint Director General and spokesperson for the ASI, the agency plans to undertake a further detailed study of Vaishya Tekri. She told the Times of India that the ASI’s Excavation Branch-I in Nagpur had sought and obtained the Director General’s approval for excavation in the early 2000s. In the same year, however, the branch also sought permission to excavate at Malhar in Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh, and that excavation was taken up instead.
The episode shows how archaeological work is shaped by institutional capacity and competing priorities, even when a site has already attracted official attention. Approval in principle does not automatically produce fieldwork. Excavation requires an implementing branch, technical teams, funding, permissions and a workable sequence of operations. The long interval at Vaishya Tekri illustrates how a site can remain important in official records while still waiting for the administrative conditions required to return to the ground.
The Madhya Pradesh government’s renewed interest adds another layer to the process. Chief Minister Mohan Yadav is keen to take the project forward, and a joint team led by collector Roshan Singh and ASI Superintending Archaeologist Shivakant Bajpai visited the site before the GPR survey began. Yet the next formal step remains with the ASI. Its regional office is awaiting permission from headquarters to undertake excavation at Vaishya Tekri.
That division of responsibility is important for understanding what happens next. State-level political interest and local administrative coordination can help move a project forward, but archaeological excavation remains subject to the ASI’s institutional approval. The survey can supply technical evidence for that decision, but it cannot replace the approval itself. Until permission is granted, the project remains at the stage of investigation and assessment rather than excavation.
For Ujjain, the site also represents a broader urban question: how should a city manage a historic asset whose importance is known but whose physical extent and condition are not? Vaishya Tekri is not merely an isolated mound. Its interpretation is connected to Ujjain’s place in the Mauryan period, Buddhist networks, ancient travel accounts and the city’s continuing role as a major cultural centre. At the same time, the supplied evidence does not establish the site’s full archaeological boundaries, present condition or potential visitor infrastructure.
That uncertainty makes the non-invasive survey particularly relevant. A fresh excavation conducted without a reliable understanding of what lies below could expose fragile remains, disturb archaeological layers or repeat the limitations of the earlier work. Mapping first creates a documented basis for deciding where intervention may be useful. It also allows the agencies involved to distinguish between the surviving stupa structure, possible subsidiary monuments and other subsurface features before committing to excavation.
The evidence currently confirms three things. First, Vaishya Tekri contains the remains of a large stupa and at least two smaller stupas identified during the 1938-39 work. Second, the monument’s scale, construction and associated coins support a Mauryan-period interpretation, while its possible links to Ashoka, Kanakgiri Vihara and Hiuen Tsang’s account remain unproven. Third, the present GPR survey is intended to guide a possible future excavation rather than serve as a substitute for one.
The developments to monitor are therefore administrative as much as archaeological: the ASI headquarters’ decision on excavation permission, the analysis of the GPR data and whether the survey identifies subsurface features that justify targeted fieldwork. Until those steps are completed, Vaishya Tekri remains a remarkable but incomplete archaeological story—one whose next chapter will depend on how effectively technology, historical evidence and institutional coordination are brought together.
