The Great Stupa at Amaravati

The Buddhist stupa at Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh was founded in about the 3rd century BC.
The stupa was a depository for a number of small relic caskets.
The identity of its original builder is not known although a fragment of a pillar inscription has been found at the site, indicating an association with Ashoka,the great Mauryan emperor of the 3rd century BC.

The stupa was refurbished and added to on many occasions especially during the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD.
Most of the sculptures in this display date form that period.
Accoding to a late inscription from Sri Lanka , the Great Stupa probably survived as a center of Buddhist worship until the 14th century.
Rediscoverd as a ruin in 1797 by the first Surveyor General of India,Col Colin Mackenzie,the stupa was excavated in 1845 by Sir Walter Eliot of the Madras Civil Service.
It is form Elliot's exetensive excavations that the British Museum acquired most of its persent collection of Amaravati sculptures.


Architecture of the Great Stupa


The core of the stupa was built of solid stone and brick masonry and the sculpted attachments and railings were caved from a local light green limestone.
Reliquaries were placed in the solid structure of the dome.
The stupa was about 18m high and the circumference of the railing is estimated to have been about 240m.


The drum


A high-sided circular drum supported the dome.
It had small projecting platforms (ayakas) at the four cardinal points and each platform bore a set of five pillars, a feature unique to stupas in this area of India.
The side of the drum was covered with sculpted stone slabs.


The railing and gateways


Between the drum and the sculpted perimeter railing was a passage used by the Buddhist faithful as a processional pathway.
The railing contained at the cardinal points.
The gateways were guarded at each end by pairs of seated lions.