A Gate to the Stupa of Sanchi (Sanchi no mon)

Yoshida Hiroshi’s love for travel comes out emphatically in his woodblock prints that he created as a memory of all that he saw and admired on his numerous travels abroad. He was in India for only a few months in 1930-31 but created a stunning visual document of important historical sites, such as Sanchi in this print. Here he recreates one of the four famous gates of the ancient Buddhist stupa in central India built by emperor Ashoka in the third century BCE. It’s interesting to note that underneath his individualised ‘hiroshi’ seal at the bottom right corner, he inscribed Sanchi in Hindi, the language of the land.