Hilltop monasteries on the seaside

“She was like some ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what had been written previously. All of these had existed in our conscious or subconscious selves, though we may not have been aware of them. And they have gone to build up the complex mysterious personality of India…“  from “The Discovery of India” by Jawaharlal Nehru

What Nehru had said so elegantly about India is equally applicable to my hometown, Visakhapatnam, better known as Vizag. It is a young city with a history that goes back to the prehistoric period. For nearly a millennium, if not more, Vizag was a major centre for the study and dissemination of Buddhism.  In this series, I shall revisit the footprints left by the early Buddhists on the sands of time in and around Vizag.

We commence our quest at Thotlakonda, a 130 metre high hillock overlooking the famed beaches of Vizag. The Buddhist settlement was accidentally discovered in 1988 by Naval personnel who were carrying out an aerial survey for setting up a defence installation. They alerted the Archaeological Survey of India who carried out excavations in the early 90’s and unearthed the ruins of a huge Buddhist monastery dating back to the third century B.C.E. (before the Christian Era).

There is a Buddhist style gateway on the beach road on which the words Thotlakonda are emblazoned in chrome letters, some of which are missing. Beyond this gateway is a beautiful statue of a beatific Gautama Buddha under a tree, seated in the padmasana with eyes closed and hands resting on his lap in the dhyana mudra. Surrounding this statue is a small park where there are several stone panels embossed with bas reliefs of scenes from Buddhist mythology. They look like replicas of sculpted panels discovered in this site but nobody seems to know where the originals are.

According to legend, Queen Maya dreamt of four angels carrying her to heaven, where she is bathed, anointed and dressed in fine clothes. A magnificent white elephant approaches her, holding a lotus with his trunk. The elephant walks around her three times before touching her on her right side and disappearing into her womb. The queen narrates the dream to her husband, King Shuddhodana who orders the royal priests to interpret it. They declare that the dream portends the birth of either a great conqueror or a great sage.

The panel below illustrates the Buddha’s birth. While the queen was travelling to her parents’ home for the delivery, her entourage decided to rest in a garden at Lumbini. This where the Buddha took birth, emerging from the right side of his mother, who was standing under a sal tree. He walked seven steps and declared his Buddhahood. Queen Maya died a week after Prince Siddhartha is born.

There are many such panels scattered around but since my knowledge of Buddhist lore is sketchy, I could not relate to them. The absence of boards describing the scenes does not help, either.

Beyond this park, the road gently ramps its way up, past the landscaped hillside all the way to the top, which is about 130 metres above sea level. Spread over a wide area, one has a commanding view of the beautifully curved of shoreline of the Bay of Bengal. A pleasant breezes wafts across from the sea, heightening the ambience.  No wonder the ancient Buddhists chose this site for setting up an important base here.

This place was originally known as Senagiri. Today, it is called Thotlakonda, which means the hills of cisterns in Telugu. It acquired this name because of the presence of several cisterns cut into the granite rock for storing rainwater.  As the monastery was located on a hilltop, it was essential to have sufficient water storage to support the needs of a hundred monks., if not more.

The focal point of a monastry is the Mahastupa,  a circular building topped by a hemispherical dome. It usually contained the relics of the Buddha or one of his important disciples. For the monks, it represented the invisible presence of the Buddha.

It is said that the mahastupa was encased in white plaster. At day time, it was visible to ships far from the coast. At night,  an array of oil lamps adorned the stupa and it served the function of a lighthouse. It must have been an amazing sight to behold.

Votive stupas are smaller in scale but similar in shape to the mahastupa. They were built by devotees in fulfillment of their spiritual desires. The offerings were placed by the devotees inside the votive stupas, typically coins, beads, gems and images of the Buddha. There are 16 such votive stupas here,

Chaityas or chaitya grihas are prayer halls. They are either circular or apsidal (rectangular with one of the shorter sides curved outwards like the English letter ‘D’). The periphery had columns for supporting a roof and in the centre there usually was a stupa. Worshipers used to walk around the chaitya while praying.

Thotlakonda served as a seminary for Buddhist monks, not just from within India but from overseas too, from places like Sri Lanka, Tibet, South East Asia and beyond. They were housed in Viharas, accommodation blocks comprising several rectangular cells. There are also pillared congregational halls, kitchens and dining halls.

Just a stone’s throw away, on an adjoining hillock of the same height, is another another monastery called Bavikonda, literally the hill of wells (Baavi is the Telugu word for well).

Though it is under the care of the ASI, it is poorly maintained. There is nobody manning the main gate and though there is a good motorable ghat road, the foliage is badly in need of a trim. Halfway up the hill, I found a group of revellers sitting under the shade of a tree, enjoying cold beers.

At the main entrance to this heritage site, there was a lone watchman sleeping some distance away. When he saw my car, he woke up but promptly went back to sleep on seeing my camera, concluding rightly that I was just another tourist.

Bavikonda is contemporaneous to and served the same function as Thotlakonda. Both were important centres of Theravada Buddhism and hosted international scholars. Proximity to the sea and maritime routes played a big part in the selection of the location of these monasteries.

A lot of artifacts were discovered during excavations. Within the mahachaitya  were found caskets containing a bone relic of the Buddha and a considerable amount of ash. Roman and Satavahana coins were found as were some gold and stone artifacts. There is no museum at the site to showcase them and remind us of tour glorious heritage. I suspect that all of them might be lying neglected and uncared for in some dingy storehouse. I do not know why they cannot have a common museum for Thotlakonda and Bavikonda.

One gets the overall impression that there is a lack of proper supervision and financial constraints too. However, it does not cost a fortune to trim the lawns and keep an eye on visitors to ensure that they do not vandalise the place. Bavikonda is as important as Thotlakonda is, but obviously, most of the available funds are being utilised on developing Thotlakonda as a tourist destination.

Some local NGO’s are campaigning for declaring both of them as UNESCO world heritage sites. If they are succesful, it will ensure better funding and more professionalism in the conservation of our invaluable heritage. They have survived the ravages of time for 23 centuries; let us hope that they can survive the neglect and destructive greed of the modern man.