Photographs from Amarāvatī and Nāgārjunakoṇḍa

This post is about the photography at two main museums in Andhra Pradesh on our recent tour. The first is of the Amarāvatī site and nearby Museum. As we had arrived early we went first to the site of the original stūpa, which is set in pleasing and quiet gardens. Most of the artifacts from the site have been removed, mainly to Museums in the UK, Chennai and Kolkata, but it was still good to walk around the remains, and get an idea of the layout and size of the original.

We then went the short distance to the Museum, which was open by then. As always the Archeological Survey of India (ASI), who run the Museum, were obstructive, not allowing photographs taken with a camera. Fortunately my kappiya, Tiong Tan, has his wits about him, and asked if we could take photos with our smartphone cameras, which bizarrely enough they allowed. The photos are indeed passable, but they are not as good as taken with a dedicated camera.

It is a fairly small museum. There are two galleries and an open courtyard, and it also contains artifacts from other sites. There is a small and not very convincing replica of the original Mahā Stūpa in the courtyard. Most of the great narrative reliefs have been removed, but what remains, which are mainly of reliefs of stūpas, with elaborate sculpting, are very impressive by their fine workmanship.

After leaving the museum, we heard about the recently constructed Amarāvatī Dhyāna Buddha Statue, so we decided to go along and take a look. I didn’t expect too much. The statue itself, which is 125ft tall, is rather poor and uninspiring, but the building on which it stands has been decorated with copies of hundreds of the most famous of the Amarāvatī reliefs, and is in good condition. There are also relief copies on the perimeter wall, but I was only able to photograph a few of these. Thios was once again one of these unexpected and unplanned finds, that just came our way.

In Nagarajuna Sagar we stayed at the Government Tourist Hotel, Vijaya Vihar, which is right next to the ferry service to go to Nāgārjunakoṇḍa on an island in the lake. As part of a mega dam project in the 50s and 60s the original site of Nāgārjunakoṇḍa had been submerged below the artificial lake created by the dam, in what was one of the worst cases of state-sponsored destruction of an archeological site in history. The remains that were saved were placed on an island, dedicated to the site.

The island has a very good Museum, bigger and better preserved reliefs are found there than at Amarāvatī. To get there was more difficult than it needed to be, as there was no ferry service planned for the morning from next to our hotel, so we had to drive around the front of the dam and into Andhra Pradesh, and catch the worker’s ferry from there. It was around 30km, rather than 30m away.

There was a lot of trouble getting on the ferry, but eventually, after a delay, and multiple phone calls, we were on board. When we arrived we went straight to the Museum, which was possibly a mistake, as when we got out of the Museum it was too hot to visit the rebuilt sites on the island. That will have to wait for another trip, if it ever happens.

The Museum itself is spacious and well-guarded, with about 100 staff on the island (not all at the Museum, of course). As we had come on the worker’s ferry there were no other tourists there, and it was easy to get round and photograph, and this is one of the best collection of relief photographs I have from India.

Later I found out that a few of the sites from Nāgārjunakoṇḍa had been moved and reconstructed on the mainland, just opposite Nāgārjunakoṇḍa island, at Anupu. This was one of the most impressive sites I visited, being set in a very remote and lovely area alongside the lake. Here they have reconstructed the University, believed to have been founded by Nāgārjuna. There is also a very grand amphitheatre and a temple to Hāriti at the same location.