Major Stupas at Udayagiri

[Stupas at Udayagiri, Orissa (Lat. 20o 38’ 45”E. Long. 86o. 16’ 25”N)]

The Brick stupa at Udayagiri-1 (Fig. 7) is situated on the southeast direction of Monastery-I at the site.The site was excavated in 1985 by J.S.Nigam, Superintending Archaeologist, Excavation Branch IV, Bhubaneswar of ASI (IAR 1985-86: 63). The stupa is built over a square platform with a low boundary-wall around it, from one side which is connected to the enclosure wall of the monastery. It was found associated with the monastery right from the beginning. According to the excavator, the compound wall was probably build to maintain privacy for its esoteric practices as it belongs to Vajrayana sect or maybe it was a Monastery for the Bhikshunis (nuns).

The stupa is devoid of any projections, and from the east are a flight of steps to reach on top of it. The stupa at its base is square on plan, measuring around 10 m and the total height of the stupais 7 m from the ground and is about 4.8 m from the pradakshinapatha (Plate-XII). It has four courses of dressed blocks of sandstone and three brick courses in its foundation. There is a space of 2.5 m between the boundary-cum retaining wall and the stupa. It was filled with stone rubble and earth; over it a floor made of gravel mixed with lateritic soil was found. This area might have been used for circumambulation around the stupa.

Earlier the excavator and scholars have reported that the stupa at Udaygiri (Plate XII), over the platform had a low medhi and from over this the elongated anda with niches in its centre, housing images of Dhyani Buddha’s rose (Nigam 1985-86:63). But a close observation of the stupa and a comparison of its architecture with the architecture ofstupas of later phase revealed that, the stupa has a low vedhi of 1 m in height^[1]. The vedhi is triratha in plan, which is embellished with two wide horizontal bands of mouldings and several vertical bands through the insets of bricks. From over this vedhi the medhi begins. Around the medhi, on all the four cardinal directions are four inset niches. The location of the niches in plumb with the base mouldings indicates that the medhi too was square on plan. The anda started from over the roof of the niches, clearly shows that the anda was low in height.

In each niche a seated image of Dhyani Buddhas flanked by a pair of Bodhisattvas are placed about 1.5 m high.^[2] Scholars differ in their identification. According to Nigam (Nigam 198586:63) the excavator the images are placed as Aksobhya in the east, Ratnasambhava in the south, Amitabha on the west and Vak in the north; Bandyopadhyay (Bandyopadhyay 2004:68-70) they are the same for those on the east, south and west but in the north instead of Vak it is that of Amogasiddhiwhereas according to Donaldson (Donaldson 2001: 63) on the north it is that of Vairocana or Abhisambodhi-Vairochana (Plate XII-A, B, C & D).They are all excellent works of art, exhibiting graceful charm and sublime bliss.

Iconographically the images can be datable to mid eight century CE (Donaldson 2001:63). Each of the images on the top are inscribed with Buddhist creed in Sanskrit language but in Devanagari script, which is datable to eight century CE reading “ye dharma hetu prabhav hetu teshama tathagato hya avadata teshama, c yo nirodho avam vadi-mahashramanah” (Nigam 1985-86:64) .

The medhi and anda of the stupa was found in a very dilapidated condition, only its core was found, which is packing of bricks, brick-bats of various sizes and earth mortar. No remains of harmika or chatravali were found from the stupa area. The evidence of patches of lime plaster from over the mouldings and the pillars during the excavations speaks that the stupa was lime plastered (Nigam, 1985-86, p-64). Thus, on the basis of the date of the images and the script the stupacan be dated to the seventh-eight century CE. On the western side of the stupa complex a rectangular brick platform measuring 2.50 x 1.10m was unearthed; this might have been used by the pilgrims as a sitting place.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Usually, in the later phase it was a practice to provide a low platform below the medhi. But as the stupawas already constructed over a high platform, the architects instead of providing a second low platform must have thought it appropriate to provide a vedhi below the medhi. Vedhi are found at the base of many minor stupas.

[2]:

This is a tradition of the Vajrayana Buddhism in which Vajrasattva is the Adi Buddha, who possesses five kinds of knowledge, conceived as his five attributes. From these five deities known as five Dhyani Buddhas emanate. They are Vairochana, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, Amoghasiddhi and Akshobhya. These Dhyani Buddhas are generally represented on the four sides of a stupa, which is the symbol of the Buddhist universe. Vairochana being the deity of the inner shrine, so, is not represented.