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ARCHAEOLOGY: BUDDHIST SITES
Easy Pickings
A series of robberies at remote Buddhist sites in Andhra
Pradesh exposes the neglect of excavated treasures
By Amarnath K. Menon in Chandavaram
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UNSAFE HERITAGE:
(from above) Chandavaram complex; sculptures that were removed from
site museum to the village; artifacts at the site museum |
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"These
artifacts show that Buddhism soared to great heights in the region
between 300 B.C. and 700 A.D."
Dr S.V.P. Halakatti, Supdt Archaeologist,
ASI
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For both the student
of Hinayana Buddhism and the archaeology buff, it is an ominous sign.
Priceless 2,000-year-old artifacts from Buddhist sites in Andhra Pradesh
are being spirited away with alarming regularity. A well-organised gang
seems to be at work and, worse, is able to elude apprehension.
In the first theft on October 9 last year two
impressive 9-ft-long panels, one with an engraving of the Bodhi tree and
the other of the chaitra or Buddhist umbrella, were yanked off the cement
platform on which they were fixed and carried away from the two-room site
museum at the foot of the strikingly large stupa at Chandavaram in Prakasam
district.
The picturesque stupa on a terraced hillock
overlooking the perennial Gundlakamma stream that has a lot of water even
at the peak of a scorching summer remains so because it is isolated and
frequented only by Buddhist scholars or the faithful of the Theravada
or Hinayana sect. That it involves a bumpy ride of about 15 km along a
dirt track by the bund of the Nagarjunasagar canal deters many but not
the culture robbers.
Official apathy emboldened the thieves to strike
again. In another meticulously planned move on February 2, they took away
three exquisite pillars, each 9-ft long, including one in which the Buddha
is represented as fire. The gang came in a tractor, tied up the two watchmen
and decamped with the booty. "This was shocking for the artifacts
were safe in the site museum for more than 15 years," admits Andhra
Pradesh Commissioner for Archaeology and Museums A. Ramalakshman, who
has since decided to shift the collection to a safer place in the heart
of Chandavaram village, more than 3 km away.
Even before the authorities got their act together,
the gang struck a third time on March 23 when the two police constables
posted at the museum had gone for lunch. This time the robbers injected
sedatives to immobilise the two watchmen before they took away three more
ornate pillars and a lotus medallion in a daring daylight heist.
Clearly, this is a worrisome loss that is underplayed
because of the site's remote location. What is glossed over is that Chandavaram
is unique in several ways. Here the stupa is built on elevated terraces
like the strikingly beautiful one at Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh. "This
was a stop on an ancient route from north India to Kanchipuram in the
south and that is how a Buddhist monastery, established during the Satavahana
times, flourished for some 800 years," explains Dr V.V. Krishna Sastry,
retired director of the Department of Archaeology and Museums (DAM). who
discovered the site in 1964. "Evidence of an ornamental railing with
four gateways all carved in stone in Sanchi and Barahut styles suggest
this was a stronghold of the Theravada Buddhists," says Dr B. Subrahmanyam,
assistant director (excavations), DAM.
The stupa's value was obviously lost on the
authorities. They removed all the panels and sculptures and dumped them
in a tiny room of the Chandavaram panchayat office saying they lacked
funds to preserve the priceless artifacts and put them on display. While
it cannot be easily stolen from the panchayat office cubby hole, the sculptures
are likely to be damaged for want of conservation treatment, let alone
getting their due place among India's archaeological treasures. Local
inhabitants are indifferent because DAM is still to pay more than Rs 10,000
for their labour and tractors hired to ferry the heavy limestone pieces
from the site museum to the village.
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