Amarāvati Stupa is a ruined Buddhist stūpa at the village of Amaravathi, Palnadu district, Andhra Pradesh, India, probably built in phases between the third century BCE and about 250 CE. It was enlarged and new sculptures replaced the earlier ones, beginning in about 50 CE.Shimada, 74 The site is under the protection of the Archaeological Survey of India, and includes the stūpa itself and the Archaeological Museum.
The surviving important sculptures from the site are now in a number of museums in India and abroad; many are considerably damaged. The great majority of sculptures are in relief, and the surviving sculptures do not include very large iconic Buddha figures, although it is clear these once existed. The largest collections are the group in the Government Museum, Chennai (along with the friezes excavated from Goli), that in the Amaravati Archaeological Museum, and the group in the British Museum in London. Others are given below.PDF List from the BASAS Project
Art historians regard the art of Amaravati as one of the three major styles or schools of ancient Indian art, the other two being the Mathura style, and the Gandharan style. Largely because of the maritime trading links of the East Indian coast, the Amaravati school or Andhra style of sculpture, seen in a number of sites in the region, had great influence on art in South India, Sri Lanka and South-East Asia.Rowland, 210
Like other major early Indian stupas, but to an unusual extent, the Amaravati sculptures include several representations of the stupa itself, which although they differ, partly reflecting the different stages of building, give a good idea of its original appearance, when it was for some time "the greatest monument in Buddhist Asia",Harle, 35 and "the jewel in the crown of early Indian art".Harle, 34
Name of the site The name Amaravathi is relatively modern, having been applied to the town and site after the Amareśvara Liṅgasvāmin temple was built in the eighteenth century.South Indian transliteration differs from Hunterian transliteration, thus Amarāvatī can appear as Amarāvathī, Ratana as Rathana, etc. The ancient settlement, just next to the modern Amaravathi village, is now called Dharanikota; this was a significant place in ancient times, probably a capital city. The oldest maps and plans, drawn by Colin Mackenzie and dated 1816, label the stūpa simply as the deepaladimma or 'hill of lights'.For link to maps and plans at the British Library: The Amaravati Album The monument was not called a stūpa in ancient inscriptions, but rather the mahācetiya or great sanctuary.Pia Brancaccio, The Buddhist Caves at Aurangabad: Transformations in Art and Religion (Leiden: Brill, 2011), p. 47.
History The stupa, or mahāchetiya, was possibly founded in the third century BCE in the time of Asoka but there is no decisive evidence for the date of foundation.Shimada, 66 The earliest inscription from the site belongs to the early centuries BCE but it cannot be assigned to Aśoka with certainty.See Harry Falk, Aśokan Sites and Artefacts: A Source-Book with Bibliography (Mainz: Von Zabern, 2006). The earliest phase from which we have architectural or sculpted remains seems to be post-Mauryan, from the 2nd century BCE.Shimada, 72
The main construction phases of Amaravati fall in two main periods, with the stupa enlarged in the second by additions to the main solid earth mound, faced with brick, consisting of railings (vedikā) and carved slabs placed around the stūpa proper. As elsewhere these slabs are usually called 'drum slabs' because they were placed round the vertical lower part or "drum" (tholobate) of the stūpa. In the early period (circa 200–100 BCE), the stūpa had a simple railing consisting of granite pillars, with plain cross-bars, and coping stones. The coping stones with youths and animal reliefs, the early drum slabs, and some other early fragments belong to this period. The stūpa must have been fairly large at this time, considering the size of the granite pillars (some of which are still seen in situ, following excavations).Shimada, 72-74
The late period of construction started around ca. 50 BCE and continued until circa 250 CE. The exterior surfaces of the stupa and the railings were in effect all new, with the old elements reused or discarded. James Burgess in his book of 1887 on the site, noted that:quoted, Shimada, 71, from The Buddhist Stupar of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta in the Krishna District, Piadras Presidency, surveyed in 1882, published Trubner, 1887wherever one digs at the back of the outer rail, broken slabs, statues &etc, are found jammed in behind it. The dark slate slabs too of the procession path are laid on a sort of concrete formed of marble chips, broken slabs, pillars &etc ...
At the base the dome seems to have been brought out by 2.4 metres all round, the distance between the outer face of the old drum wall, and that of the new one. The older wall was 2.4 metres thick and the new one 1.2 metres. The size and shape of the new dome is uncertain.Shimada, 82
The earlier vedika railings were also replaced with larger ones, with more sculpture. Some of the old stones were recycled elsewhere on the site. The pillars had mostly been plain, but there was a coping carved in relief at the top.Shimada, 64, plates 5-12 Burgess estimated that the new railings were some 3 metres tall, 59 metres in diameter, with 136 pillars and 348 crossbars, running for 803 feet in total.
The work of this period has generally been divided into three phases on the basis of the styles and content of the railing sculpture and so dates that can be assigned to parts of the great limestone railing.Shimada, 82-83, for Shimada see Akira Shimada Shimada dates the first phase to 50–1 BCE, about the same period as the Sanchi stūpa I gateways. The second phase is 50–100 CE, the same period as Karli chaitya and the Pandavleni Caves (no. 3 and 10) at Nasik. The third phase is circa 200–250 CE based on comparisons with Nagarjunakonda sculpture. Some other types of sculpture belong to an even later time, about the seventh or eighth centuries, and include standing Bodhisattvas and goddesses. Amaravātī continued to be active after this time, probably to about the thirteenth century.
The Chinese traveller and Buddhist monk Hiuen Tsang (Xuanzang) visited Amaravati in 640 CE, stayed for some time and studied the Abhidhammapitakam. He wrote an enthusiastic account of the place, and the viharas and monasteries there.Travels of Xuanzang It was still mentioned in Sri Lanka and Tibet as a centre of Esoteric Buddhism as late as the 14th century.BM, 1
During the period of the decline of Buddhism in India, the stupa was neglected and was buried under rubble and grass. A 14th-century inscription in Sri Lanka mentions repairs made to the stupa, and after that it was forgotten. The stupa is related to the Vajrayana teachings of Kalachakra, still practiced today in Tibetan Buddhism.Kilty, G Ornament of Stainless Light, Wisdom 2004, The Dalai Lama of Tibet conducted a Kalachakra initiation at this location in 2006, attended by over 100,000 pilgrims.Becker, 6
Recovery Westerners were first alerted to the ruins of the Stupa at Amaravati after a visit in 1797 by Major Colin Mackenzie.Buddha, ancientindia.co.uk, retrieved 19 December 2013 On the right bank of the Krishna River in the Andhra district of southeast India, Mackenzie came across a huge Buddhist construction built of bricks and faced with slabs of limestone.Amravati, PilgrimTrips, retrieved 12 January 2014 By the time he returned in 1816, indiscriminate excavations led by the powerful local zamindar Vasireddy Venkatadri Nayudu had already destroyed what remained of the structure and many of the stones and bricks had been reused to build local houses. Mackenzie carried out further excavations, recorded what he saw and drew a plan of the stupa.Government Museum Website Government Museum homepage (and then click on "Archaeology", Chennai Museum, Tamil Nadu, retrieved 11 January 2014
In 1845, Sir Walter Elliot of the Madras Civil Service explored the area around the stupa and excavated near the west gate of the railing, removing many sculptures to Madras (now Chennai). They were kept outside the local college before being transported to the Madras Museum. At this time India was run by the East India Company and it was to that company that the curator of the museum appealed. The curator Dr Edward Balfour was concerned that the artefacts were deteriorating so in 1853 he started to raise a case for them to be moved. Elliot seems to have made extensive notes and sketches of his excavations, but most of these were lost getting back to England.Shimada, 88
By 1855, he had arranged for both photographs and drawings to be made of the artifacts, now called the Elliot Marbles. 75 photographs taken by Captain Linnaeus Tripe are now in the British Library. Many of the sculptures were exported to London in 1859, though more remained in Madras. Robert Sewell, under James Burgess, first Director of the Archaeological Survey of India, made further excavations in the 1880s, recording his excavations in some detail with drawings and sketches but not in the detail that would now be expected.
Plans have also been put in place to create a purpose built exhibition space for the sculptures still in India. Those marbles not in an air-conditioned store were said to show signs of damage from the atmosphere and salt. The Chennai museum has plans for an air-conditioned gallery to install the sculptures, but these goals have yet to be realised.
Sculptures
The history of the sculptures for the stupa is complicated and scholarly understanding of it is still developing. The subject matter of many detailed narrative reliefs is still unidentified,BM, 48-57 and many reliefs of the first main phase round the drum were turned round in the second, and recarved on their previously plain backs, before being re-mounted on the drum. The earlier sculptures, now invisible and facing into the stupa, were often badly abraded or worn down in this position.Becker, 7-9; Shimada, 71; Shimada, plates 20 and 21 illustrate both sides of an example.
In the final form of the stupa, it seems that all the sculpture of the early phase was eventually replaced, and new sculpture added in positions where there had been none before, giving a profusion of sculpture, both relief and free-standing, on the stupa itself, and the vedika railings and gateways surrounding it, making Amaravati "the most richly decorated stupa known".Fisher, 40 (see 197-200 on Borobudor for why this is presumably excluded from comparison).
The final form of the railings had a diameter of 192 feet. The railing uprights were some 9 feet high, with three rounded cross-bars horizontally between them, and a coping at the top. Both uprights and cross-bars were decorated with round medallion or tondo reliefs, the latter slightly larger, and containing the most impressive surviving sculpture. Large numbers of the medallions contained just a single stylized lotus flower. The vedika had four entrances, at the cardinal directions, and here the railings turned to run away from the stupa.
All this is much the same as at Sanchi, the surviving highly decorated stupa that is in the closest to its original condition. But the Sanchi railings have much less decoration, except around the famous torana gateways; these do not seem to have been a feature at Amaravati.
Types of sculpture