Of the 140 listed Buddhist sites in the state of Andhra Pradesh, I decided to pay a visit to Amaravati, more because it houses a large number of Buddhist sculptures.

Amaravati is located in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. As I drove a little to the south of Amaravati I came across the the site of the Great Stupa, which, I was informed, was by and large the freest monument in the Buddhist world in the 2nd century A.D. What I found here was just a circle of debris enclosing a few broken pillars and the course of a small stream.

Driving for about half a mile to the west of Amaravati I arrived at the small town of Dharanikota, which was earlier known as Dhanyakataka. Except the massive earthen embankments which encircle it I found nothing of this ancient place. But my guide informed me that it was a Buddhist centre of considerable vitality. The fact is substantialized by the discovery of two groups of bronze figures of the Buddha and of several stone figures of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas dating back to 6th - 11th century AD.

Regarding the structure of Great Stupa, I would like to share my prior knowledge which I had gained from various books. As speculated in 1868 by Fergusson, a student of architecture, the stupa consisted of two sculptured stone rails surrounding a complex of wooden buildings and a small stupa, thirty feet in diameter. Another architect, Sewel, pointed out that the two rails surrounded a vast, solid dome some one hundred and forty-eight feet in diameter.

I also visited the lofty temple of “Amareswara”, dedicated to the Hindu god Lord Siva, which according to legends was Buddhist in origin. It is situated at a strategic point on the banks of the river Krishna.

Since all the sculptures and artefacts discovered in Amaravati are preserved in the Madras Museum, I flew off to Madras the very next day.