Nandangarh Stupa; A small village 24 km from Bettiah in the state of Bihar, Lauriya Nandangarh makes for an interesting visit for the Buddhist tourists. At this place, emperor Ashoka erected 40 pillars, however, today, only one of them stand in its entirety. This small village is best known for its huge stupa called Nandangarh which is 26 metre high and has a circumference of almost 457 m, is built of bricks. It is considered to be the one of the biggest stupas in India. The stupa, it is believed, enshrines the ashes of Lord Buddha. Excavation of the Nandangarh site was started in 1935 and continued until 1939. Before excavation the mound had a height of 25 m and a circumference of about 460 m, standing at the East of a brick fortification about 1.6 km in perimeter and roughly oval of plan, no doubt enclosing a habitation area, perhaps the headquarters of a clan that was responsible for the erection of the Lauriya Stupas. Surface finds indicate that it was inhabited in Sunga (if not earlier) and Kushans times. On excavation, Nandangarh turned out to be stupendous Stupa with a polygonal base; with its missing dome which must have been proportionately tall, the Stupa must have been one of the highest in India. The walls of the four cardinal directions at the base are each 32 m long and the wall between each has a zigzag course with 14 re-entrant and 13 outer angles. The walls flanking the first and second terraces following the polygonal plan of the base; those pertaining to the upper terraces were circular. An extensive later restoration hid the four upper walls and provided new circular ones; the polygonal plan of the walls of the base and the first terrace were left unaltered. The top of each terrace served as a pradakshina-path (South facing pathway), though no staircase to reach the top was found in the excavated portion. The core of the stupa consists of a filling of earth with a large number of animal and human figurines in the Sunga and Kushana idiom, a few punch marked coins and cast copper coins, terracotta sealing of the 2nd and 1st century B.C. and iron objects. As the earth was brought from outside, obviously from a part of the habitation area to the South of the stupa where the resultant pond is still visible, the objects are understandably not stratified. In a shaft dug into center of the mound an undisturbed filling was found at a depth of 4.3 m the remains of a brick altar 1 m high; it has previously been truncated, perhaps by one of the explorers of the 19th and the early 20th centuries. Further down at a depth of 4.6 m from the bottom of the altar the top of an intact, miniature stupa was found, complete with a surmounting square umbrella. This stupa is 3.6 m high and polygonal on plan. An examination of its interior yielded nothing meaningful, but beside there lay a tiny copper vessel with a lid fastened to it by a wire. Inside the vessel was a long strip of the birch leaf manuscript, which having been squeezed into it was so fragile that it was impossible to spread it out and examine thoroughly without damaging it. The bits that could be extricated showed Buddhist text (probably the Pratītyasamutpāda since the word nirodha could be read a few times) written in characters of the 4th century A.D. No excavations were made at a further depth.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 07:19:33 +0000
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