Historical Geography of Ancient India c7.416

c7.416

*Nāgārjunikoṇḍa.*—This hill belongs to the Palnad taluk of the Guntur district of the Madras State. It overhangs the right bank of the river Kṛṣṇā. Nāgārjuna’s hill which is a large rocky hill, lies 16 miles west of Macherla railway station. This remarkable site was discovered in 1926. Several brick-mounds and marble-pillars have been discovered. Some of the pillars bear inscriptions in Prakrit and in Brāhmī characters of the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. A number of ruined monasteries, apsidal temples, stūpas, inscriptions, coins, relics, pottery, statues, and more than 400 magnificent bas-reliefs of the Amarāvatī type are the discoveries made here. The inscriptions recovered from Nāgārjunikoṇḍa go to show that in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. the ancient city of Vijayapurī must have been one of the largest and most important Buddhist settlements in South India. The stūpas, monasteries and temples were built of large bricks, the bricks being laid in mud-mortar and the walls covered with plaster. The mouldings and other ornamentation of these brick-structures were usually executed in stucco and the buildings were whitewashed from top to bottom. At Nāgārjunikoṇḍa each monastic establishment was complete in itself. For a detailed study vide A. H. Longhurt, *The Buddhist Antiquities of Nāgārjunikoṇḍa*, Madras Presidency (*M.A.S.I.*, No. 54).