Sanchi Stupa 3, though much smaller in dimensions (diameter 15 metres and height 8.23 metres excluding the crowning members), was modelled after Sanchi Stupa 1. It has only one gateway, and its dome, extensively rebuilt, is pronouncedly more hemispherical. Of its ground balustrade, four upright-bases alone are now standing; these uprights have a medallion at the centre and two half-medallions at either ends with three facets in between them. The stupa, crowned by a single umbrella, was built along with its stairway, berm and harmika balustrades in the second century BC, not long after the reconstruction of Stupa 1.

It is known from inscriptions that a single individual participated in the gift of the stairway balustrades of both the stupas. After a century or more, the ground balustrade was added, and this was followed by the erection of the carved gateway, most probably in the early part of the first century AD.

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