Nagarjunakonda

Anupu, India

Nagarjunakonda (ISO: Nāgārjunikoṇḍā, meaning Nagarjuna Hill) is a historical town, now an island located near Nagarjuna Sagar in Palnadu district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It is one of India's historical Buddhist sites, and now lies almost entirely under the lake created by the Nagarjun

a Sagar Dam. With the construction of the dam, the archaeological relics at Nagarjunakonda were submerged, and had to be excavated and transferred to higher land, which has become an island. The site was once the location of a large Buddhist monastic university complex, attracting students from as far as China, Gandhara, Bengal and Sri Lanka. There are ruins of several Mahayana Buddhist and Hindu shrines. It is 160 km west of another important historic site, the Amaravati Stupa. The sculptures found at Nagarjunakonda are now mostly removed to various museums in India and abroad. They represent the second most important group in the distinctive "Amaravati style", sometimes called "Later Andhra". There is also a palace area, with secular reliefs, that are very rare from such an early date, and show Roman influence. The modern name is after Nagarjuna, a southern Indian master of Mahayana Buddhism...

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