On a hill over­look­ing the plain and about 40 km from Bhopal, the site of Sanchi com­pris­es a group of Bud­dhist mon­u­ments (mono­lith­ic pil­lars, palaces, tem­ples and monas­ter­ies) all in dif­fer­ent states of con­ser­va­tion most of which date back to the 2nd and 1st cen­turies B.C. It is the old­est Bud­dhist sanc­tu­ary in exis­tence and was a major Bud­dhist cen­tre in India until the 12th cen­tu­ry A.D.