THE GREAT STUPA AT NAGARJUNAKONDA IN SOUTHERN INDIA.
BY A. H. LONGHURST.
The Indian Antiquary,
October, 1932, p. 186-192
p. 186
NAGARJUNAKONDA, or Nagarjuna's hill, is the name
of a big rocky hat-topped hill on the right bank of
the Krishna river in the Palnad taluk of the Guntur
district of the Madras Presidency, and 15 miles west
by north of Macherla railway station, the terminus of
the new line from Guntur opened in 1931. The hill
stands in a valley completely shut in by at ring of
hills, an offshoot of the Nallamalais (Black Hills)
of the adjoining Kurnool district, on three sides,
with the Krishna, river on the fourth or
north-western side, where it forms the boundary
between this part of the Madras Presidency and the
Nizam's Dominions. The annexed site plan (Plate I)
shows the geographical features of the area and the
positions of the monuments discovered.
Nagarjunakonda is about 60 miles distant from
Amaravati as the crow flies, but considerably further
by river. It is a wild and desolate spot, and being
shut in by the surrounding rocky hills is usually
very hot during most months of the year. There is a
rough cart track from Macherla to Nagulavaram, a
distance of 10 miles, but the remaining 5 miles over
the hills and through the valley to Nagarjunakonda
has to be performed on foot, as no cart traffic is
possible.
The hill was once fortified, and remains of brick
and stone fortifications still remain all along the
rugged cliffs surrounding the plateau on its summit,
showing that it was once used as a citadel; but no
ruined buildings of interest were discovered on the
hill. At the eastern foot of the hill and scattered
throughout the valley are a number of ruined stupas
of all sizes, from little structures 8 feet in
diameter to large ones like the Great Stupa, 106 feet
in diameter. There are also many ruined monasteries
and apsidal Buddhist temples, showing that, at one
time, there existed here a large and flourishing
Buddhist settlement, far larger in fact than the one
at Amaravati lower down the river. A number of
important inscriptions in Prakrit and in Brahmi
characters of about the second century A.D. were
discovered in connection with the Great Stupa and two
apsidal. temples. Professor Vogel of Leiden
University has published an account of these old
records in the Epigraphia Indica, volume XX, 1931.
Besides a number of inscriptions end ruined
buildings, many lead coins of the Andhra period, gold
and silver reliquaries, pottery, statues and over
four hundred magnifi cent bas-relief sculptures
similar to those from Amaravati, were recovered
curing the excavations which I conducted at
Nagarjunakonda during the cold seasons of 1928 to
1931, when T completed the explorations, A brief
account of these discoveries appears in the Annual
Reports of the Archaological Survey of India for
those years, but a fully illustrated account of the
remarkable discoveries made would fill a large
volume, and has yet to be written.
The historical information furnished by the
inscriptions is somewhat meagre, and the careless
manner in which some of them were engraved adds to
the difficulty of interpreting the precise meaning of
certain words and sentences. The records belong to
the Southern Ikhaku dynasty, who were ruling in this
part of India between the second and third centuries
A.D. It is clear from these inscriptions that they
were kings of considerable importance, but also wih
they formed matrimonial alliances not only with the
rulers of Vanavasa (North Kanara), Ikhakus revealed
by the inscriptions, is that while the rulers were
followers of Brahmanism and performed Vedic
sacrifices, their consorts were devotees of the
Buddha and erected buildings for the Buddhists
settled at Nagarjunakonda and made pious donations to
the stupas. Most of these buildings owed their
existence to the piety of certain queens and
princesses belonging to the royal house of Ikhaku,
the principal founder being a princess named
Chamtisiri, who is praised for her munificence in
many of the inscriptions belonging to the Great
Stupa, or Mahachetiya, as it is called in the piller
inscriptions belonging to it, and which was founded
____________________
Note.--The copyright of the photographs reproduced
to illustrate this article gioal Survey of india.
p. 187
or perhaps rebuilt, when the pillars were added, by
the lady in question in the sixth year of the reign
of king Siri-Virtapurisadata between the second and
third centuries A.D. The same royal lady built a
monastery and an apsidal temple close to the eastern
gate of the Great Stupa, the ruins of which remain.
Another important inscription was found engraved on
the stone floor of an apsidal temple situated on a
rocky hill about two furlongs to the east of the
Great Stupa, and known locally as Naharallabodu. This
temple and a monastery standing alongside of if were
built by a lady named Bodhisiri and dedicated to the
fraternities of Ceylonese monks settled at
Nagarjunakonda. The inscription relates that these
Ceylonese Buddhists had converted the people of
Kashmir, Gandhara, China, Ceylon, Bengal, Kanara, and
other places in India. The latter part of the
inscription mentions other pious works by Bodhisiri,
including a pillared hall or mandapa at Kantakasela,
which, as Dr. Vogel points out in his account of
these inscriptions, must be identical with "the
emporium Kantikossula," mentioned by Ptolemy as being
situated "after the mouths of the Maisolos
(Krishna)." The Periplus speaks of "the region of
Masalia," stretching a long way along the coast," and
adds, "a great quantity of muslins is made here." The
ancient name by which the Krishna delta was known to
the Greeks is preserved in that of the seaport of
Masulipatam.
In the same inscription (F of Dr. Vogel's list),
the name of the ancient city that once existed in the
Nagarjunakonda valley is given as Vijayapuri, and the
hill now known as Naharallabodu, on which Bodhisiri
erected the temple and monastery for the Ceylonese
monks, is called the Lesser Dhammagiri situated on
Sriparvata. The hill in question is an offshoot of
the surrounding Nallamalais of the adjoining Kurnool
district. These hills extend in a south-westerly
direction all along the river into the Kurnool
district, where, on the top of a wooded hill some 50
miles south-west of Nagarjunakonda and facing the
river, stands the famous Srisailam temple sacred to
Siva and a great place of pilgrimage in the spring,
when a big annual festival is held there. It thus
seems from this inscription that in early times the
Nallamalais were known as Sriparvata. This is an
interesting point, because there is an ancient
tradition preserved in Tibet that the famous Buddhist
divine Nagarjuna ended his days in a monastery on
Sriparvata in Southern India. If this monastery is
the same as the ruined one on the Lesser Dhammagiri,
if would follow that the association of Nagarjuna
with this locality has been preserved up to the
present day in the name Nagarjunakonda (Nagarjuna's
Hill).
The fact that a monastery and a temple were built
specially for the benefit of Ceylonese, monks shows
that very cordial relations must have existed between
the Andhra, Buddhists and their co-religionists in
Ceylon at that period. The existence of such
relations can be readily accounted for by the
sea-borne trade which was carried on between the
ports of Ceylon and the great emporium Kantakasela of
the Krishna delta. It was no doubt this trade which
was mainly responsible for the flourishing state of
Buddhism in this part of Southern India, which
enabled the Buddhist merchants and their royal
masters to raise monuments of such magnificence as
those at Nagarjunakonda and Amaravati. As Dr. Vogel
mentions, the decline of Buddhism in the lower
Krishna valley may have had other causes besides the
general wane of that religion all over India, there
may have been economic factors at work, such as the
decline of the sea-borne trade with the West, which
had caused vast quantities of Roman gold to pour into
Southern India. There was also the conquest of the
south by the Gupta Emperor Samudra Gupta and the rise
of powerful dynasties devoted to Brahmanism, like the
Pallava dynasty in the South and the Chalukya in the
West.
The ruined buildings discovered, represent the
remains of stupas, monasteries, apsidal temples and a
palace. They were all built of large bricks measuring
20' x 10' x 3", the same dimensions as the bricks
recently found at Bulandibagh near Patna in Bihar,
the ancient site of Pataliputra. It is strange that
at two sites so far distant both should yield large
bricks of the same dimensions. The pillars, floors,
statues and important sculptures were executed
p. 188
in white or grey limestone resembling marble. No
other stone was used, and it was brought to the site
by means of the river and landed at a stone-built
wharf that still remains (see Plate I, 12). The wharf
is about 250 feet in length, 50 feet wide and 6 feet
in height along the river front and at both ends.
Three rows of broken stone pillars extending from end
to end show that it was originally provided with a
wooden roof, probably thatched. It seems to have
served as a kind of Customs House, with a row of
shops or godowns on either side. Here, the Krishna is
more than half a mile wide, with numerous sandbanks
and huge rocks in its bed, but during the rains it is
a very large river and navigable for country craft
right down to the sea.
On plan and in construction, the Andhra stupas
differ from those found in the North. They are built
in the form of a wheel with hub, spokes and tire all
complete and executed in brickwork (see plan of stupa
On Plate III). The open spaces between the radiating
walls were filled up with earth, and the dome or
brick casing built over the structure. As no traces
of structural stone tees have been discovered in
Southern India, we may presume that they were built
of brick and plaster and decorated with the rail
ornament in the latter material. The stupas were
covered with chunam, or fine shell-lime plaster, from
top to bottom, anti the moulding and other
ornamentation was usually executed in stucco or
plaster. The dome rested on a circular platform or
drum from 2 to 5 feet in height according to the size
of the monument. On top of the drum was a narrow path
encircling the foot of the dome, and on each of the
four sides, facing the cardinal points, was a
rectangular platform resembling an altar and the same
height as the drum. In the inscriptions these
platforms are described as ayaka-platforms, because
they usually supported a group of five stone pillars,
called ayaka-khambhas (ayaka-pillars). The precise
meaning of the word ayaka is not known, but it is
used much as we use the word 'altar.' From the
has-relief representations of stupas recovered from
the Nagarjunakonda and Amaravati stupas the
ayaka-platform appears as an altar, on which pious
-donors are portrayed depositing their offerings of
fruit and flowers. All Andhra stupas had those
platforms, but only those belonging to large and
important monuments were provided with pillars. As
each group consisted of five pillars, the total
number of pillars for each stupa so decorated was
twenty. The inscriptions show that these pillars
represent gifts made to the stupa in honour of the
Buddha and to the merit of the pious donors who
provided the money for the work; hut no information
is given as to the meaning or symbolism of the
pillars.
The chief scenes portrayed in the sculptures
recovered from these Andhra stupas represent the five
great 'miracles,' or chief events in the life of the
Buddha, namely, the Nativity, Renunciation, Sambodhi,
First Sermon, and the Buddha's Death. These five
incidents are portrayed over and over again, either
as beautifully executed bas-relief scenes, or else as
mere conventional symbols, such as a tree, wheel and
stupa. In this form they are found engraved on some
of the bases of the ayaka-pillars belonging to the
Amaravati Stupa now in the Madras Museum; and I
discovered at Nagarjunakonda four bases of
ayaka-pillars each ornamented with a bas-relief
representation of the 'First Sermon.' The presence of
these symbols carved on the bases of the pillars
seems to indicate that they were set up to
commemorate the five great miracles; just as we know
Asoka erected pillars to mark the sacred spots where
these events are said to have occurred in Nepal and
Bihar. As it was impossible for those living in the
Krishna district to erect the pillars an the aotual
spots in Northern India, they seem to have hit upon
the idea of conventionslising the pillars into groups
of five for the sake of convenience, so that the
events could be commemorated locally, and also,
perhaps, with a view to adding to the splendour and
importance of the stupas, as in the case of the
Amaravati Stupa, where the stone casing to the dome,
the ayaka-platforms and pillars, and the stone
railing, were all added to the monument in the second
or third century A.D. This we know from the
inscriptions belonging to that monument. In earlier
times the ayaka-pillars were unknown, and they only
occur in the Andhra stupas of that period.
p. 189
The platforms and pillars vary in size and height
according to the dimensions of the stupa to which
they belong. The pillars vary from 10 to 30 feet in
height, with square bases and octagonal shafts. The
tops are round, showing that they could not have
supported capitals or any other kind of ornaments. In
some of the bas-relief pictures of stupas, the
pillars are shown crowned with trisula ornaments, the
centre pillar often with a miniature stupa as
capital. This is incorrect and purely decorative, as
they never supported anything and could not do so as
the tops were round, so that any ornament placed
there would fall immediately to the ground. In this
case the ornaments merely indicate that the pillars
were dedicated to the Buddha, and the inscriptions
confirm this.
In the sculptures two kinds of stupas are
depicted--one a plain brick and plaster structure
like the stupas of the Asokan age; and the other is
similar in all respects, except that the brick
surface is faced with richly carved stone slabs
embedded in mortar. This stone casing was applied
only to the face of the drum, ayaka-platforms and
lower portion of the dome. The upper portion of the
domes of all Andhra stupas was executed in brick and
plaster and decorated with a characteristic garland
ornament encircling the dome. This ornament always
appears in the has-relief representations of stupas,
and is in the form of a broad festoon decorated with
big lotus medallions executed in plaster.
The stone casing was applied only to the base of
the dome, as it is obvious that flat stone slabs
could not be fixed to the curved surface of the upper
portion of the dome. In order to do this, each stone
would have to be specially cut with a convex front
and a concave back, and even then it would be very
difficult to keep the stones in position, so this
part of the stupas was always in plaster. These
decorated stupas were faced partly with stone slabs
and partly with plaster ornamentation, the two
materials being used together, and when the work was
completed the stupa wits given a coating of
shell-lime plaster from top to bottom, to hide any
defects or inequalities in.the work. For this
purpose, the white limestone used for this work was
specially suitable, as it was of the right colour and
takes whitewash or plaster readily, being very
absorbent. It was no doubt these considerations and
the fact that it is soft and easy to work when
freshly quarried, that led to its general use in the
Krishna valley. From the remains of slate-stone
bas-reliefs and plaster ornament recovered from the
ruined stupas of Gandhara, it seems that they were
decorated in the same manner as those erected by the
Andhras. The inscriptions show that there was
considerable intercourse between the Buddhists of
Gandhara and their co-religionists in the South, and
in all probability the Andhras adopted the custom
from the Gandhara builders in the second century
A.D., or thereabouts. Gandhara influence is also
strongly marked in many of the Andhra bas-reliefs and
statues in the round. Traces of Roman influence are
also manifest in a few of the sculptures and in two
small gold medallions recovered from Nagarjunakonda.
This is not surprising, as we know that in the second
and third centuries of our era there was considerable
sea-borne trade between Rome and this part of
Southern India.
When complete, the Great Stupa at Nagarjunakonda
must have been a perfect example of a plain Andhra
stupa (Plate II, fig. 2). It is built of large bricks
measuring 20' x 10' x 3", and in the usual form of a
wheel (Plate III, fig. 2). It was covered with
plaster from top to bottom, the dome being decorated
with the usual garland ornament, and the drum with a
few simple mouldings executed in plaster. No stone
was used in its construction, the ayaka-pillars alone
being of that material, end, as at Amaravati, they
probably represent a later addition to the stupa.
They were gifts, as their inscriptions show, and were
erected between the second and third centuries A.D.
The diameter of the stupa including the drum is 106
feet. The drum is raised 5 feet above the ground
level, and the total height of the monument,
excluding the tee, must have been about 70 to 80
feet. On top of the drum is a narrow path, 7 feet
wide, extending all round the base of the dome. No
traces of steps
p. 190
up to this path were found, but it is possible that
they may have existed. No steps are depiotep redepio
ed in the has-relief representations of stupas, so
perhaps there were none to any of these monuments.
The ayaka-platforms are 22 feet in length and 5 feet
in width, and the bases of the five stone pillars
were securely built into the brickwork. In the
stone-faced stupas, the ayaka-platforms were the most
highly decorated features of the stupa. Here the
Andhra sculptor exhibited his best works of art,
partly because these platforms were regarded as very
holy structures resembling altars on which votive
offerings were placed, and mainly perhaps, because
they faced the four open gateways of the stupa, so
that they were the first objects seen by anyone
entering the sacred precinct around the stupa. The
stupa was surrounded by a processional path 13 feet
in width, and enclosed by a wooden railing standing
on brick foundations, which still remain. The
gateways were formed by extending the railing
outwards so as to form a screen on each side of the
entrance, but there were apparently no transoms
spanning the entrance, like those of the Sanchi
toranas. No traces of stone rails or toronas were
found at Nagarjunakonda, and it is quite clear that
none existed there.
As a rule, the fails and gates were constructed
of carved woodwork, no doubt resting on brick
foundations, to protect them from damp and the
ravages of white ante. It was only in very special
cases that they were ever executed in stone, and then
they were merely stone models of carved wooden
originals.
When first discovered, the Great Stupa at
Nagarjunakonda was a large mound of earth and broken
brick overgrown with grass and jungle, with two
ayaka-pillars standing erect, the remaining eighteen
pillars having fallen. As the whole of the dome of
the stupa had been demolished, the ayaka-pillars and
platforms thrown down and broken by treasure seekers,
the chances of finding any relies in the edifice
appeared very remote indeed. The first thing was to
remove the debris and trace out the plan of the
structure and recover the broken pillars. When this
work was finished and the excavations completed, the
appearance of the Great Stupa may be gathered from
Plate II, fig. 2.
Fortunately, instead of piecing the relies in the
centre of the Great Stupa, they were deposited in one
of the outer chambers on the north-western side of
the stupa, where they escaped the notice of the
treasure seekers who wrecked the monument (Plate III,
fig. 1). As the slupa contained 40 chambers, all of
which had to be excavated down to the natural ground
level, the excavation of this monument was a very
laborious task that took a month to complete. At
last, when we had given up all hopes of finding
anything of interest, one of the coolies noticed a
small broken ]pot in the north-western corner of the
chamber marked with a, cross on the plan (Plate III,
fig. 2). The pot had been crushed when the chamber
was filled with earth by the Buddhists, and all that
remained is shown in Plate IV, fig. 1. On the surface
were a few white crystal beads and a, tiny gold box.
After carefully sifting the contents of the pot the
following objects were found:-a fragment of bone
placed in a small round gold reliquary three-quarters
of an inch in diameter. This was placed in a little
silver casket, shaped like a miniature stupa, 2 1/2
inches in height, together with a few gold flowers,
pearls, garnets and crystals. The three large crystal
beads and the round earornament were placed in the
pot and not in the casket. The latter unfortunately
was very corroded and broken, but a replica was made,
which appears in the photograph showing the finds
recovered from the tomb (Plate IV, fig. 2). The
earthenware pot containing the casket and reliquary
was placed originally in the corner of the chamber,
which was filled up with earth as soon as the
consecration ceremony was over. The brick dome was
then built over the remains, and the plastering and
decoration of the stupa completed. No traces of
ornamental plaster were found in the debris round the
monument, except portions of simple mouldings that
once decorated the plinth and cornice of the drum. It
must have been a perfectly plain structure like those
of the Asokan age before the ayaka-pillars were added
in the second century A.D. (Plate II, fig. 2).
p. 191
In the inscriptions belonging to the Great Stupa,
the monument is called the "Mahachetiya of the Lord,
the Supreme Buddha," clearly showing that the tomb
was consecrated to the Great Teacher and to nobody
else. The discovery of the dhalu, or bone relic,
proves that the monument was a dhatugarbha, or 'tomb
containing a relic,' and that it was not a mere
'dedicatory' stupa. The latter were memorial stupas,
which contained no relics, and, like Asoka's pillars,
were erected on celebrated sites sacred to the
Buddha, such as his birthplace, and so on. It is,
therefore, obvious that the Great Stupa did not
belong to this class of memorial monument. The
inscriptions do not definitely state why the stupa
was built; they merely state that the ayaka-pillars
were dedicated to the Buddha, and that they were Bet
up by the princess Chamtisiri and other royal ladies
of the same house. Supposing the stupa to have been
already in existence prior to the erection of the
pillars, it would have been necessary first to
enlarge the drum and build the ayaka-platforms to
accommodate the pillars, and then replaster and
decorate the stupa from top to bottom to complete the
work. In fact, it would have meant rebuilding the
whole of the exterior of the monument. Dr. Vogel is
of opinion that the inscriptions show that the
Mahachetiya was " founded " by Chamtisiri, but it is
by no means clear whether she built, rebuilt, or
merely contributed to the structure. If she did build
the stupa, then it was she who enshrined the relic
found in the chamber;but it is impossible to believe
that so great an event as this could have occurred
without the fact being recorded in at least one of
the many inscriptions referring to the stupa. We know
that the monument was consecrated to the Buddha, as
the inscriptions are quite clear on this point.
Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the relic
recovered from the tomb represents a dhatu, or
corporeal relic of the Great Teacher, otherwise there
could be no possible reason for calling the tomb the
" Mahachetiya of the Lord, the Supreme Buddha." That
the Mahachetiya was regarded as a particularly holy
shrine is obvious from the tone and wording of the
inscriptions found at the site. Again, the size of
the tomb, the number of pious donations made by
ladies of royal blood, and the fact that pilgrims
came from ail over India and Ceylon to reverence it,
afford testimony of this.
Unfortunately, the meaning of some of the words
and phrases met with in the inscriptions is very
obscure. Commenting upon this, Dr. Vogel says-"A
considerable difficulty in the way of interpreting
the Nagarjunikonda inscriptions is the want of
precision of which they show ample evidence.
Considering that these inscriptions were meant to be
perpetual records of pious donations made by ladies
of royal blood, the careless manner in which they
have been recorded is astonishing. Not only single
syllables but whole words have been omitted," Dr.
Hirananda Sastri, Epigraphist to the Government of
India, who has also made a study of these
inscriptions, found the same difficulty, and, as
might be expected in the circumstances, his
interpretation of the precise meaning of certain
words differs from Dr. Vogel's. The records belonging
to the Mahachetiya open with an invocation to the
Buddha, who is extolled in a long string of laudatory
epithets. Dr. Hirananda Sastri is of opinion that the
style and wording of the invocation shows that the
Mahachctiya has been specified in these inscriptions
as " protected by the corporeal remains of the Buddha
and that the genitive case is used here to
discriminate this stupa from others not larly
consecrated. Nine ruined stupas were discovered at
Nagarjunakonda, four of them highly decorated with
stone bas-reliefs similar to those recovered from
Amaravati, but the Mahachetiya is the only one
bearing inscriptions indicating that it was
consecrated to the Buddha.
The discovery of the relic and the fact that
inscription B. 2 of Dr. Vogel's List, definitely
gives the name of the monument as the Mahachetiya of
the Buddha, seem conclusive evidence that the
monument was originally built to enshrine some
corporeal remains of the Buddha, as Dr. Hirananda
Sastri maintains. The stupa was probably built long
before Chamtisiri set up the pillars and rebuilt the
structure in the second century A.D., or there
abouts, which
p. 192
would explain why the inscriptions give no
information about the consecration or how the relic
was obtained. If the Mahachetiya did exit prior to
the second century A.D., the fact that it contained
corporeal remains of the Great Teacher would have
been known throughout India and Ceylon, thus making
it unnecessary to record this information in
inscriptions added to the monument in later times.
We know from the inscriptions recovered from
Sanchi, Sarnath and Amaravati that the great stupas
that existed at these three famous sites were all
rebuilt in later times. These inscriptions give the
names of some of the pious donors who found the money
for the additions to these monuments, but, like the
Nagarjunakonda, inscriptions, they give no
information concerning the purpose for which the
stupas were built, or when they were erected, just
the very points which we should so much like to know.
The Amaravati inscriptions show that the stone
casing, ayaka-pillars and stone railing were added to
the Great Stupa at that place in the second or third
century A.D., that is, at the same period as that in
which Chamtisiri set up the pillars and rebuilt the
Mahachetiya at Nagarjunakonda. Originally, the
Amaravati Stupa seems to have been a,plain brick and
plaster stupa similar to the Mahachetiya, and it must
have been a particularly holy shrine, else it would
never have been enlarged and decorated in so costly a
fashion. Perhaps when Chamtisiri learned what was
taking place at Amaravati, she felt it incumbent upon
herself, as the leading devotee of the Buddha at
Nagarjunakonda, to redecorate and improve the
Mahachetiya.
Personally, like Dr. Hirananda Sastri, I do not
think there can be any doubt that the Mahachetiya was
originally built to enshrine some corporeal remains
of the Buddha, and that the fragment of bone found in
the gold reliquary represents a genuine dhatu, or
relic, of the Great Teacher. There is no reason why
such a relic could not have been obtained from
Northern India long before the days of Chamtisiri.