Vaishali (ancient city)

Vaishali, Vesali or Vaiśālī was an ancient city located north of Patna in present-day Bihar, India. It is now a Buddhist pilgrimage site that also contains two important stupas of the Buddha, the Relic Stupa of Vaishali and the Stupa of Complete Victory. As an archaeological site it forms part of the Vaishali District in Tirhut Division.

It was the capital city of the Vajjika League of Vrijji mahajanapada, considered one of the first examples of a republic that dates from c.6th century BCE. Gautama Buddha preached his last sermon before his mahaparinirvana in c. 544 BCE, and Vaishali is also home to two important stupas directly related to the Buddha, the Relic Stupa of Vaishali, which is said to contain the ashes of the Buddha, and the Stupa of Complete Victory that represents the prolongation of the Buddha's life by three months when he was eighty years old.

In 383 BCE the Second Buddhist council was convened here by King Kalasoka, making Vaisali an even more important place to both Jains and Buddhists. It also contains one of the best-preserved of the Pillars of Ashoka from the 3rd century BCE, topped by a single Asiatic lion.

The city finds mention in the travel accounts of Chinese explorers, Faxian (4th century CE) and Xuanzang (7th century CE), which were later used in 1861 by British archaeologist Alexander Cunningham to first identify Vaiśālī with the present village of Basarh in the Vaishali District of Bihar.