Stupas in Orissa (Introduction)

Stupas are one of the earliest religious structures found in India, which to a Buddhist is the representation of Buddha himself and the epithet of the Buddhist Universe with all the heavens as conceived in Buddhism. Erection of stupas became a widespread practice and assumed such importance that it became an unprecedented activity never reported in any other cult or community. In the words of I-tsing the Chinese pilgrim who visited India in the second half of the seventh century, the Indian belief was “Even if a man, makes an image as small as a grain of barley or a stupa of a size of a small jujube, placing on it a round figure, or a staff like a pin, a special cause for good birth is obtained thereby, and will be as limitless as the seven seas and good rewards will last as long as four births” (Mitra 1981:27) Stupa architecture saw different stages in its development and styles, in space and time, which has already been discussed in details in the previous chapter.

Buddhism was known to Orissa right from the time of Buddha. This is evident from the large number of Buddhist sites reported throughout the length and breadth of the state. There are three hundred twenty four sites (Prusty 1997, Donaldson 2001, Chauley 2005) spread all over Orissa. The largest concentration of sites is in present Jajpur district i.e. one hundred and thirty-seven sites. Sahu (Sahu 1958:152-53) identified Jajpur with “Uddiyana / Oddiyana / Odra pitha” one out of the four important Buddhist Tantric centers in Orissa.

District	Number of Sites
Cuttack,Jajpur, Kendrapara and Jagatsinghpur.	239 sites (62+136+25+16 sites respectively)
asore	26 sites
Mayurbhanj	8 sites
Keonjhar	4 sites
Dhenkanel	3 sites
Sambalpur	3 sites
Bolangir	3 sites
Phulbani	4 sites
Ganjam	4 sites
Puri (Khurda)	30 sites (16+14 sites respectively)
Total	324 sites

But it has to be mentioned that out of the 324 sites only 108 sites have remains of Buddhist establishments in the form of brick-bats, architectural fragments, potsherds, sculptures, etc of stupas, monastic complexs, Chaityas and temples. Buddhist establishments have not been reported from all the sites; 199 sites have sculptural remains, sometimes along with votive stupas. But mostly, these sites, at present have only one or two images or are housed/placed in some modern temple, under a tree, in someone’s personal collection or had some remains but are missing now. At 19 sites rock-cut cave have been identified and from 52 sites votive stupas have been reported.

Leaving the excavated apsidal chityagrihas from Lalitagiri and Udaygiri ruins of chityagrihas have been reported from Paradipgarh in Jagitsinghpur district and Ganiapali in Sambalpur district. From Brahmanadevi in Jajpur district a colossal laterite image of Buddha is reported. In the same district, on Kaima hill, a rock-cut elephant has been reported. Besides this, if one goes minutely through the remains or systematic excavations are taken up at some of the promising sites, many interesting and un-known facts about Buddhism and Buddhist establishments in Orissa hitherto unknown, shall be brought to light.

Excavations were carried out at 21 sites but from among these, stupas were reported from only a few sites i.e. Lalitagiri, Langudi, Udayagiri, Ratnagiri, Deuli (Devraj 1999:230), Tarapur (Devraj 1999: 229) and Aragarh (Chakarabarti 1998:11). According to Chakarabarti (Chakarabarti 1998), on the hill of Aragarh remains of a huge stupa mound enclosed by railings existed. The site was excavated by the State Archaeology Department but nothing as such was found at the site. Detailed information is available on Ratnagiri, Lalitagiri, Udayagiri and Langudi.

It is uncertain to say with certainty with the present knowledge as to when stupa building started in Orissa. As per the literary references stupas were erected in Orissa from the time of Buddha itself, but archaeologically, none of the excavated stupa can be dated earlier to third-second Century BCE. Though all the important excavated sites are located in a radius of 20 km, they show wide diversity, which has been discussed in detail below. Further, some old prevailing notions and theories about the date, architecture, etc of stupas in Orissa have been refuted and modified in the light of the evidences available from excavated sites in South Asia.

Here, in this work, the stupas excavated at these four sites has been discussed in the following sequence-Starting with the Main stupas then the Minor structural stupas followed by the Votive stupas, Metal stupas followed by architectural and stylistic variation as seen at different sites on the different parts of the stupa through ages. As per the tentative dates assigned to the sites, the remains at Lalitagiriare discussed first followed by Langudi, Udayagiri and Ratnagiri (Largest number of stupas has been reported from Ratnagiri).