Abstract

An examination of the interaction among the donor groups at Amaravati has brought out the institutional base of the early Buddhist art-activity and its social orientations. The Buddhist monastery emerges as the nodal point of the institutionalized form of Buddhism. The planning and construction of the Mahacaitya and the smaller caityas, and the subsequent renovations and sculptural embellishments involved processes of mobilization of human, natural and economic resources, and constituted the most significant socio-economic and cultural activity at Amaravati in the early centuries of the Christian era. Entrenched in the monasteries were the different cadres of the monks whose presiding and mediating functions included preserving the canons through a tradition of textual scholarship, fixing the architectural plans, selecting themes for the sculptural and narrative art, organizing patronage, supervising renovations and embellishments etc. The architectural tradition within the Caityaka monasteries and the monastic contributions to the ‘Amaravati School of Art’ have also been highlighted.

I

Preliminaries

The early Buddhist site of Amaravati in the eastern Deccan has long been known to the students of early Indian history, archaeology and art ever since the pioneering efforts of Colonel Colin Mackenzie of the Trigonometrical Survey of India, towards the end of the 18th century, at salvaging the ruins of the Buddhist stupa of the site from further ruination.¹ The site was, since then, excavated many times, and the relief- sculptures that once adorned the structural parts of the stupa as well as the artefacts of the different phases of human occupation at the site were brought to light.² Any historiographical glance over the discourse on Amaravati during the last two centuries can show that most studies centred either around the art and the sculptural styles of the stupa or on the architecture of the stupa with its shape, size and structural phases in focus, or on the chronology of the stupa.³ This overemphasis on art and architecture per se has vitiated a proper understanding of the historical dimensions of the construction of the mahacaitya and the linkages between the socio-economic processes and Buddhism on the one hand and art and architecture on the other.

This paper proposes to analyse select data from the corpus of the short label inscriptions recovered from Amaravati along with data from the archaeological excavations, art history and the Buddhist canonical texts for addressing certain conceptual issues of the interface between art and the socio-religious mechanism at Amaravati during the three centuries both before and after the beginning of the Christian era. The central concern of the paper is the reconstruction of the institutional base of the early art activity and the particular pattern of social interaction in the environs of Amaravati during the time span that has been chosen for the study. It highlights the role of early monastic Buddhism with its ideological, socio-religious and economic contents, and with the monastery as the institutional base, in accelerating the socio-economic processes and in providing focus to the typical social interactions and traits, structurally and functionally similar to those seen at the other early Buddhist centres of the period, like Sanci, Bharhut, Mathura etc. The paper is an attempt at understanding the most important institutional apparatus of Buddhism—the vihara or the monastery as the institutionalised form of the Buddhist sangha—during the period of the transition from the megalithic cultural stratum to the early historical period in the light of evidence from Amaravati-Dharanikota, the site that has yielded the largest quantity of material evidence of religious and socio-economic import in the eastern Deccan and had diffused cultural idioms or traits which were symptomatic of a new social formation in the eastern Deccan as a whole during the three centuries before and after the beginning of the Christian era.

Although much headway has been registered in the archaeological excavations at, and the study of the art of, Amaravati, results of these researches remain more or less isolated blocks in time and space and have not been incorporated into historical studies. The studies on Amaravati have suffered from, as already pointed out, overemphasis on the art and architecture of the stupa. A gulf between archaeological excavations and historical research is also discernible as has been noticed by H. Sarkar: “... We failed to study Dhanyakataka and its neighbourhood as a complete city, leading to an improper understanding of its ecological factors and its role in the early history of Andhra."⁴ He admitted the fact that the stupas formed part of a larger social and economic fabric which was completely lost sight of.⁵ While most scholars took the sculptural art of Amaravati as a source of history to shed light on contemporary life, no serious attempt was made to historicise art or to identify and analyse the relationship between art and the socio-religious mechanism at Amaravati. Moreover, such a stance on the part of the scholars failed to address such crucial issues as the society, religion and economy promoting a school of art, and the historical and social dimensions of art.

The archaeological remains from Amaravati-Dharanikota include the debris of the structure of the mahacaitya; the relief-sculptures in lime-stone depicting incidents from the life of the Buddha, the Jataka stories and the symbolic and anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha, which, when in situ, adorned the different structural parts of the mahacaitya;⁶ the short donatory epigraphs, which are dated to the period between circa 2^nd century B.C. and 3rd century A.D, and are engraved on the structural parts and sculptured slabs of the mahacaitya;⁷ the coins from excavations and hoards⁸; the remains of the material culture as seen in the archaeological stratigraphy,⁹ etc. Along with these may be used the Buddhist literary works, both canonical and secular,¹⁰ though they do not contain direct reference either to the mahacaitya or to the Buddhist establishments of the site.

The assessment of the way the knowledge of Amaravati was accumulated in the 19th and 20th centuries brings forth certain observations pertaining to the debris unearthed so far at the site. The 'quite haphazard', non-professional, diggings of the last century¹¹ and the absence of horizontal excavations have obliterated an integral and comprehensive picture of the structural and stratigraphical sequence of the ruins of the site. The remains were not monolithic i.e., these did not necessarily constitute a single monument, as for example the mahacaitya, in time and space as is proved by the existence of some smaller caityas¹² near the mahacaitya. Evidently noticeable in and essentially interrelated to the different sculptural phases or styles are the large-scale renovations, attested to both by the inscriptional as well as the archaeological evidence. Once it is understood that there were also some smaller stupas as well as Buddhist monasteries like the mahavihara¹³ at Amaravati, it follows that the site was not simply a 'stupa-site' as it was represented to be in the archaeological reports but rather that the mahacaitya, the numerous smaller stupas and viharas, the nigama¹⁴and gosthi,¹⁵ a navigational channel, a fortified settlement¹⁶ etc. together constituted a Buddhist complex in the midst of an early historical market-town.

The period covered by the study i.e., from the 3^rd century B.C. to the 3^rd century A.D. needs justification. It is only from the layers ascribed by the excavator to the 4th-3rd centuries B.C. that material remains in appreciable quantity have been collected. It is a period of transition from the megalithic to the early historical in the eastern Deccan. Cultural and commercial contacts of the lower Krishna valley with central and north India resulting in the spread of elements of material culture and Buddhism to the south-eastern Deccan are also attested to since the 3rd century B.C. Archaeologically, the period is noted for intensive 'structural activity'. The structural remains of the mahacaitya with the sculptured panels, the votive and donatory inscriptions, and the coins belong to the period taken up for study. The period about 3rd century A.D. marks the climax of structural activity to be followed by a general decline in structural activity and trade.¹⁷

Amaravati-Dharanikota is taken in this paper as a single unit of study and focal point in contrast to what has been done by the archaeologists who dug up these two sites as separate entities for study and excavation, with the exception of I. K. Sarma and H. Sarkar. The rationale for considering these two sites as an organic whole is that, first of all, the inscriptions recovered from both the sites refer to the location of the Buddhist establishments as 'Dhamnakata' or Dhanyakataka,¹⁸ the ancient name of the locality, and attest to the common cultural affiliations. Secondly, the archaeological stratigraphy of both the sites, once placed side by side and read together, shows unmistakable correspondence. Thirdly, a Buddhist religious establishment as a centre of popular worship could not originate and prosper in cultural isolation, unconnected with a settlement and devoid of patronage, and still produce monumental buildings. The paper also presumes that the bent of mind that produced the systems of ancient Indian philosophy and literature also went into the production of early Indian art. The production and appreciation of art or architecture are integral features that identify a people or a society in any historical context, and especially so in an ancient context since religious beliefs, canonical prescriptions, mythology, folklore, social ethos, political and economic patronage, aesthetics etc. are involved in the production and appreciation of art. This paper stems out of the conviction that the study of art in society offers unexplored data and problems for a re-examination of the rise of a developed Buddhist complex in the midst of the megalithic Iron Age communities. There is, however, no glossing over of the limitations of the paper like the lack of direct reference in the sources to the problems that are being highlighted. Therefore, it is feared that a measure of speculation has crept into the analysis.

Situated in the lower Krishna valley on its southern bank in the fertile rice-growing area¹⁹ and close to the megalithic diamond mines,²⁰ Amaravati-Dharanikota held a position of strategic importance though it is located at a distance of 62 miles from the mouth of river Krishna. Without the disadvantages and dangers of a situation on the coast of Coromandel, it enjoyed the benefits of communication with the sea. Growing as an inland port, it stood as the gateway of commerce along with Krishna which served to fertilise its fields, to disseminate its culture and to distribute its goods.²¹ The south-eastern Deccan was well-knit in the early historical routes of trade and communication that linked the whole of the Indian subcontinent.²² The Northern Black Polished Ware from stratigraphic sequence at Amaravati, which was a pre-Mauryan deluxe ware with an early Buddhist affinity, bears witness to the contacts with the early Buddhist centres of the north-east like Sravasti, Vaisali, Rajagrha and others.²³ Trade routes passing through early Andhra converged towards the country of Vengi in the neighbourhood of Amaravati, lying between the lower vallies of Krishna and Godavari. The trade routes to Kalinga in the north-east, to Dravida/Tamilakam in the south, to Karnataka in the south-west, to Maharashtra in the north-west and to Kosala in the north converged here. Buddhist monastic sites grew along these caravan routes.²⁴ Of more than the sixty Buddhist sites of the early historical period, located or exposed in Andhra Pradesh, the maximum concentration is in the Krishna delta and the fertile eastern coastal seaboard from Kalingapatam or Salihundam in the north to Ramtirtham on the river Pennar in the south.²⁵ The Buddhist establishments at Amaravati came into existence in the centuries immediately preceding the beginning of the Christian era as part of a collective or 'community patronage' of the Buddhist monastic establishments, which was a prominent feature in peninsular India in the warmth of the commercial prosperity ushered in by the expansion of trade and agriculture.²⁶

Primacy of the Sangha and Vihāra

The history of the evolution of Buddhism was such that the Buddhist monastic community was the prerequisite for the existence of Buddhism in a given society and that without the Sangha there was no Buddhism.²⁷ Any search for the institutional apparatus of the early Buddhist movement begins from the sangha i.e., the monastic organisation, and the viharas i.e., the base of operation or function of the sangha. The sangha and the viharas are the two outfits which connected the doctrines, beliefs and practices of Buddhism with the life and culture of the people. However, structural remains of monasteries have not so far been properly identified at Amaravati though inscriptional references to them are concrete, supplemented by Hiuen Tsang's accounts. The Dharanikota Dharmacakra Pillar Inscription records the erection of Dhammacakka-dvaja at the eastern gate of the mahavihara²⁸ at Dhanakada, while the prevalence of the different Mahasanghika monastic sects like the Caityakas, the Puvaseliya, Mahavanaseliya, Rajagirika, Siddhatthika, Jadikiya etc. may be taken for the existence of their respective monasteries²⁹ at Amaravati at different times, many of which were later on found deserted by Hiuen Tsang³⁰ in the 7^th century A.D.

It was noticed as early as 1837 by James Prinsep that the origin of the Buddhist monuments at Amaravati owed much to endowments or donations.³¹ This was, later on, elaborated by Alexander Cunningham, E. Hultzsch and James Burgess who had brought out that the structural parts of the mahacaitya were donated by various socio-economic groups like bhikkhu, bhikkhuni etc., and lay groups like upasaka and upasika³² on the basis of the decipherment of the epigraphs found engraved on the debris at the site. A closer look at some of the groups mentioned in the epigraphs offers scope for understanding the nature of interaction among these groups, the participation of the donors in the construction of the stupa and their role in the social set up of the day, and more importantly, the nature of institutional formation in the south-eastern Deccan during the two or three centuries before and after the beginning of the Christian era.

Monks and Nuns as Donors and as an Elite Group

Of all the donors mentioned in the epigraphs from Amaravati, the category of monks and nuns stand out in sharp contrast to the other categories of donors on more than one ground. They belonged, by the prescriptions of the Vinaya rules, to an apparently non-economic function but could still confer gifts to the mahacaitya; secondly, they are generally found to enjoy greater status than that of the other donors; and thirdly, certain specialised cadres among them formed what may be called a monastic elite, enjoying greater respectability and authority and organising those activities which arose in the context of the construction and renovation of the caityas. The source of income of the monks at Amaravati for sponsoring building activities is ambiguous. It has, however, been suggested with regard to the donations of the monks and nuns at Bharhut and Sanci, that the monks had strayed considerably away from the path of austerity and abstinence preached by early Buddhism and had begun to participate in mercantile activity in the two centuries preceding the beginning of the Christian era.³³ Possibly, it was not necessary on the part of the monks and nuns to renounce all their wealth upon entering the brotherhood of monks in spite of the canonical prescriptions in the Vinayas to the contrary. As had been mentioned in the Jataka stories, monks had occasionally retained and enjoyed worldly possessions even after joining the sangha or amassed wealth by trading in clothes or selling vegetables or getting a living by being physicians.³⁴ We accept the conclusion of Gregory Schopen on the question as to whether the Buddhist monks and nuns possessed private property in early India: “… the evidence we have, from all periods indicates that they did.”³⁵

Hierarchy among the Buddhist World-Renouncers

The epigraphs from Amaravati do not refer to the monks as a monolithic group. While some are referred to as bhikhu and bhikhuni,³⁶ most others are referred to with honorific titles like aya and ayira³⁷ (worthy of); bhayata and bhayamta³⁸ (reverend or venerable monk); dahara bhikhu³⁹ (young monk); pavajitika (nun), samanika (nun) and samana⁴⁰ (monk); and thera (elder) and mahathera⁴¹ (great elder). Some of the titles may be indicative of the inferior position accorded to the nuns, possibly on the basis of gender and scriptural learning, as compared with the monks⁴² whereas epithets like dahara, bhayata, thera, mahathera etc. are indicative of seniority, status and respectability. Although it had been maintained by earlier writers that no distinction in rank was made in ancient times among the Buddhist monks except that which was connected with age and superior knowledge and that there was no hierarchy among them,⁴³ the inscriptional evidence from Amaravati can be taken to indicate the difference in status of the venerable monks and the ordinary lay worshippers who were casually referred to either by their professions and occupations or by their places of residence.⁴⁴ It also vouches the suggestions of scholars that a specifically Buddhist character of the laity never got crystallised in the long history of Buddhism in India.⁴⁵ Similar honorific titles occur at the other early Buddhist centres also like, Sanchi, Kanheri, Bhaja⁴⁶ etc.

Specialists of Canons

A second group of monks figuring as donors bears titles indicative of specific ecclesiastical functions in a monastic context, as for example dhamakadhika⁴⁷ (preacher of the dharma), mahadhammakadhika⁴⁸ (the great preacher of the dharma), vinayadhara⁴⁹ (learned in Vinaya), mahavinayadhara(the great scholar in Vinaya texts) and samyutakabhanaka⁵¹ (scholar or reciter of Samyukta Nikaya). Many of these titles occur in the inscriptions at Bharhut, Sanchi and Bodh Gaya⁵² also while referring to the donors. The titles point to the system among the Buddhist monks of the eastern Deccan of specialisation in the different branches of the Buddhist canons. They envisaged the two particular functions of reciting or discussing the sacred texts within a monastic and scholastic context for preserving and transmitting them,⁵³ and secondly, of preaching and teaching the lay devotees as well as the different social groups outside the monastic context. This division of monks into separate offices or bodies, each of which was meant to preserve a particular portion of the Buddhist scriptures, helped in safeguarding the purity of the basic teachings of the Buddha through a tradition of textual scholarship in a pre-literate context.⁵⁴ It is significant that some of the offices or functions referred to above are mentioned in the Pali canons which shows that these offices were definitely anterior to the final compilation of the canons⁵⁵ and can be dated back to the first Buddhist Council⁵⁶. There are instances of these specialised offices having given rise to schismatic schools by their clinging on to particular portions of the Pitaka.⁵⁷ If understood in terms of the descriptions in the canonical literature, the monks with such titles and status hailing from the north and south-east of India were participants in the Buddhist Councils and were the intellectual force behind the philosophical speculations and controversies enshrined in the Tripitaka and their commentaries.⁵⁸ It may also be presumed that these offices had contributed to the growth of canons on the basis of their experience within the milieu of the eastern Deccan, though sifting those portions or ideas with such imprint and reconstructing the texts of the schismatic groups who held sway at Amaravati at different times may not be possible with the present state of knowledge of the Buddhist canonical literature. It has been shown by Nalinaksha Dutt, on the basis of epigraphical evidence from Amarāvatī and Nāgārjunakonda, that a Mahāsānghika canon in its three divisions existed in the eastern Deccan in the beginning of the Christian era.⁵⁹

With regard to the status accorded to and commanded by the monks in question, a distinction can be made between the monks whose functions were undefined and unregistered, and the monks whose functions were defined and registered in the donatory epigraphs which were meant to be commemorative. The latter group stood out among the monks, commanding reverence and respectability from the general group of monks as well as the laity. It has already been shown by scholars that the monks are not represented as a uniform group in the Pāli texts.⁶⁰ Moreover, the monastic practice of according rank and status on the basis of learning and the degree of asceticism was noticed by I-tsing also.⁶¹ The earlier custom among the Buddhologists of characterising the monks as a monolithic group without proper emphasis on the different functions or offices attached to them in different historical contexts will have to be reviewed in the light of the present evidence.

Monastic Specialists and Supervisors of Buddhist Art Activity

A curious function or office associated with the monks and frequently mentioned in the epigraphs is that of navakamaka,⁶² the overseer of building or renovation work, whose functions appear to be much different from that of the vinayadhara, dhamakadhika, samyutaka bhanaka etc., already referred to above. Navakamaka is met with at the other early Buddhist centres of the peninsula like Bharhut, Kanheri and Sonari⁶³ also. This office too can be traced back to the early Buddhist canonical literature though not much of concrete evidence can be deduced from the textual sources on the real nature or style of their functioning, their status vis-a-vis the other functionaries among the monks and the laity, and the nature of their interaction with the community. The significance of the office of navakamika can be partially worked out from the Cullavagga wherein the Buddha permitted the bhikkhus to give new buildings in course of erection for the sangha in the charge of a navakamika. Such a bhikkhu was an overseer, should exert himself to the end that work on the vihara or other buildings might be brought to a rapid conclusion, and should afterwards cause repairs to be executed wherever the buildings have become broken or worn out.⁶⁴ In the same text, the Master lays down procedures to be followed by the sangha on appointing a navakamika. The deliberations involved included seeking the willingness of the bhikkhu to undertake the duty, laying the matter before the sangha as a natti (motion) and seeking its approval of the appointment.⁶⁵ He is an officer or functionary of the Buddhist sangha for the conduct of the multifarious activities of the sangha or the monastery.⁶⁶ The appointment of senior monks as navakamika was found necessary for ensuring the ecclesiastical specifications of monastic buildings.⁶⁷ Moreover, the actual process of collecting contributions or donations for the building activities of the stupa would have led to the taking up of the supervisory role by the monks which might gradually have included the supervision of the technical aspects of architecture and sculpture as well.⁶⁸ The primacy of the monastic concerns has been pointed out by Gregory Schopen also: “Monks—and oftentimes learned monks—supervised and controlled building activities at monastic sites; they determined, it would appear, what was and what was not built and where it was to be placed. Their choices and their values are, again, what we see expressed at Buddhist monastic sites.”⁶⁹

It has been shown that the status of the navakamika was dependent on the personal accomplishments of the concerned monk and the nature of the work that he was to supervise.⁷⁰ They were artists of authority as distinguished from other classes of artisans like avesanin, the foreman of artisans,⁷¹ or pasanika, the stone worker.⁷² Being master architects, they had other monks as pupils at Amaravati as in the case of thera bhayata Budharakhita who had bhikhuni Budharakhita as a female atevasi.⁷³ This teacher-pupil relationship was conducive to specialisations and to the growth of particular schools of sculpture and architecture.⁷⁴ The status accorded to these monk-supervisors at Amaravati amounted to that of the experts of canons, the teachers and the preachers as is clear from the epithet or phrase employed in the epigraphs—thera bhayata—to denote reverence and seniority. Similar evidence can be noticed at the other early Buddhist centres also. At Bharhut, the early Buddhist site to which the sculptural and artistic traditions of the early phase of the Amaravati art are heavily indebted, a navakamika donor was referred to as a bhanaka,⁷⁵ thereby indicating an association between the knowledge of the canons and the planning and the construction of the stupa. At Nagarjunakonda in the lower Krishna valley, a navakamika who knew Digha and Majjhima Nikaya by heart established the foundation of the Mahacaitya at the site.⁷⁶ At Kanheri, a pavajita and a thera functioned as navakamikas.⁷⁷

The epigraphs mention some more monk-functionaries associated with the renovations of the stupas like vedikanavakamika⁷⁸ (supervisor of the renovation-work of the vedika), mahanavakamika⁷⁹ (the great supervisor of the renovation-work) and navakamikapadhana⁸⁰ (the chief supervisor of the renovation-work). These titles are suggestive of the extent of the construction/renovation that was going on at Amaravati in the two or three centuries before and after the beginning of the Christian era, as well as of the prevalence of a hierarchy among the monk-supervisors, not recorded either in the early Buddhist literature or at the other early Buddhist centres. It seems that the most developed mode of stupa-construction of the early Buddhists was practised at Amaravati by the Caityakas, a schismatic group devoted to the construction and worship of caityas, whose beliefs and practices will soon be examined below. Furthermore, the corpus of the epigraphs as a whole is permeated with the references to the status accorded to the specialised categories of the monks.

Data on the inmates of the viharas at Amaravati indicate a structured monastic hierarchy with the various functionaries. The cadres of the preachers and teachers, and the monk-supervisors constituted a monastic elite that was in a position to interact with the different socio-economic and occupational groups. Interestingly enough, they are found registering their gifts along with the donors from various social groups. Analysis of the epigraphs brings forth the picture of a monastic community entrenched in the cloisters, but interacting with the people of the region at different levels.

Caityakas and their Doctrinal Base

Amaravati is the one site where all the philosophical and schismatic trends within early Buddhism got ample and continuous reflections in terms of inscriptional and sculptural evidence. Some of the early Buddhist schismatic groups that were enumerated in the Mahavamsa, Dipavamsa and Kathavatthu-atthakatha have been referred to in the Amaravati inscriptions also and one particular group among them, the Caityakas, was in possession of the mahacaitya⁸¹ at Amaravati. The Caityakas were an off-shoot of the Mahasanghikas, the earliest seceders from the original Buddhist sangha and the forerunners of the Mahayana. Basically Hinayanists, the Mahasanghikas established themselves at Vaisali and Pataliputra in the north, but gained more influence subsequently at Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda in the eastern Deccan.⁸² Of the Mahasanghikas, the Caityakas were the most active and dominant at Amaravati as attested to by the epigraphs. They were occasionally also referred to as cetiya vamdaka⁸³ and they might have had a separate literature of their own, which could have merged with or incorporated subsequently into the huge compilation known as Mahavastu.⁸⁴ The epigraphs also mention four more monastic sects—the Pubbaseliyas, Aparaseliyas, Rajagiriyas and Siddhatthikas who are supposed to have branched off from the Caityakas. These four sects were given the collective name Andhaka by Buddhaghosha in his commentary to the Kathavatthu.⁸⁵ Since all the Buddhist sects of Amaravati during the period belonged to either the Caityaka mother-sect or else the 'Andhaka' sects, the off-shoots of the Caityakas, it is reasonable to hold that the specialised cadres of the reverend monks who have been highlighted above, belonged to the Caityaka monasteries.

The doctrinal contributions of the Caityakas and their cultural practices brought about transformations in religious ideology and consequently, in the attitudes of the sangha towards the laity.⁸⁶ They held that one could acquire great merit by the creation, decoration and worship of the caityas; even a circumambulation of the caitya as well as offerings of flowers, garlands, scents, etc. to the caitya were meritorious; and one could acquire religious merit by making gifts and donations, and the merit thus acquired could be transferred to one's relatives and friends.⁸⁷ The socio-economic implications of these apparently ethical percepts coupled with the provision offered by the epigraphs for proclaiming and commemorating dana to the sangha may be deduced from the waves of donations and the prolonged construction and renovation activities spanning across nearly half a millennium at Amaravati. The intellectual emphasis of the Caityaka monasteries seemed to be twofold: one on canons as represented by the dhammakadhika, vinayadhara etc. and the other on subjects of pragmatic importance like architecture useful for the construction and upkeep of caityas and viharas as represented by the navakamika, mahanavakamika etc. Thus the Caityaka monasticism combined together scriptural and sculptural / artistic traditions.

The custom of building caitya or stupa to commemorate great personages was pre-Buddhist in origin, and all that the early Buddhists did was adapting an early Indian practice to suit the new purpose of motivating people and popularising the Buddhist doctrines by incorporating ritual veneration of the commemorative monument. The kernal of rationality or justification for the Caityaka attempt to focus the caitya has to be eventually sought for in the oft-quoted dialogues put into the mouth of the Buddha in the Mahaparinibbana Suttanta of the Digha Nikaya. According to that dialogue, the Buddha recommended that “At the four cross-roads a stupa should be erected to a Tathagata. And whosoever shall there place garlands or perfumes or paint or make salutation there, or become in its presence calm in heart—that shall long be to them for a profit and a joy."⁸⁸ In the same Sutta, the Buddha while staying at Vaisali was said to have taught the Vajjians the seven conditions of welfare and prosperity, one of which was the support of their own tribal shrines. As long as they honoured, esteemed, revered and supported 'Vajjicetiyani' (the Vajjian shrines) in town or in country, the Buddha said, the Vajjians would surely prosper.⁸⁹ This canonical justification of a pre-Buddhist practice became the central axiom of the Caityakas who gave to it formal expressions through an elaborate system of observances.⁹⁰

The presence of the Caityakas at Amaravati is attested to by the inscriptions of the early Christian centuries A.D., whereas the earliest structural foundations of the Mahacaitya have been ascribed by the excavations to as early as the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C. The earliest sculptural activity at Amaravati in particular and south-east India in general has also been traced to the 2nd century B.C. Furthermore, the theme of the earliest narrative art together with the labels engraved on a stele at Amaravati which placed Dhanyakataka along with the Caityaka centres like Vaisali, has been interpreted to mean the presence of the Caityakas by about the 2nd century B.C.⁹¹ The inscription, which reads bhikhuno pataliputato, looks back to corridors of contact between Pataliputra, the chief centre of the Mahasanghikas, and Amaravati in south-east India.⁹² Thus even the phase of the religious and artistic activity at Amaravati in the pre-Christian centuries can be traced to the cult of the raising, embellishing and worshipping of the stupa although these practices were yet to be theoretically formalised and institutionalised through the monasteries. The influence wielded by the Caityakas can be inferred from such characterisations in the inscriptions as mahacetiye cetikiyanam nikayasa parigahe i.e., the great caitya in the possession of the Cetika school.⁹³ If the short but explicit descriptions of the intense devotion with which the mahacaitya was visualised in the epigraphs are indicators, we find the picture of various social groups getting more or less oriented to the caitya in the centuries immediately preceding and succeeding the beginning of the Christian era, reminiscent of a similar but later tradition of a temple-oriented society and culture in south India more than half a millennium later.⁹⁴ What emerges is that the Caityakas were primarily responsible for bringing the Caitya at Amaravati into cultural foci and in systematising and popularising the characteristic practices of stupa worship.

The foregoing examination of the inscriptional evidence on the specialised functionaries of the monks attached to the monasteries and the discussion of their philosophical and schismatic base together form a prelude to counterpoising the overemphasis on the styles of art and to taking up the preeminent role of the monasteries in the cultural and socio-economic activities of the region, though any inquiry in this regard is bound to be handicapped due to the lack of direct evidence. However, discussions on the role of the monks and renouncers of ancient India galore and recourse is sought here to the insights thrown up by these erudite discussions.

Role of the Buddhist World-Renouncer and the Vihāras

The socio-ritualistic and economic role of the renouncers who include the monks too, has been a characteristic feature of ancient Indian civilization and they were symbols of authority within the society.⁹⁵ The renouncer was believed to acquire supernormal powers and he accumulated in himself a complex inter-relation of social signals and became an alternative avenue of authority.⁹⁶ The Buddhist sangha as a body of renouncers was equally considered as an alternative source of authority which governed social and religious life, and it was a channel of communication with the society.⁹⁷ As providers of ethics and discipline for the lay community and as centres of intellectual, artistic and educational life in the community, the Buddhist monasteries acted as social catalysts.⁹⁸ Thus, the Buddhist monasteries turned out to be not only repositories of learning and art but also centres of structured interaction with the lay community. Scholars have already shown in the case of the Buddhist monasteries of the western Deccan that they acted as pioneers and also as centres providing information on cropping pattern, markets and organisation of village settlements. Secondly, they helped in establishing channels of communication in the newly colonised regions, which could then be used by the state to enforce its authority. The picture that emerges in the western Deccan was one of a tripartite relationship involving the state, the monasteries and the tribal communities.⁹⁹ Almost parallel instances have been noticed in northern India under the Kusana rule and in the contemporary China.¹⁰⁰ As will be shown subsequently in this paper, the monasteries of Amaravati offer analogous trends.

Processes of Interaction between the Vihāra and the Society

The process of interaction that we are going to outline below between the bhikkhus centred in the viharas, and the laity, will help us in tracing different aspects of the institutional base of the early Buddhist art-activity as represented by the evidence at Amaravati. This interaction in itself was a consequence of the institutionalisation of the sangha and Buddhism which brought about changes in the way of life of the monks from one of the eremite or homeless wanderer to that of monastic habitude of the cenobite, and a transformation of the concept of dana.¹⁰¹ Though references do occur at Amaravati to the itinerant mendicants and forest-recluses,¹⁰² who may be taken for a vanishing category, no precise chronological framework can be assigned for the transition from the former to the cenobites of the monasteries in the eastern Deccan. This gradual transformation from the vassavasa (rain-retreat) to the viharas like the mahavihara of Dhamnakata brought about changes in the patimokkha, the monastic code set out in the Vinaya, and debates on the details of which occupied the proceedings of the various Buddhist Councils and even contributed to the rise of new sects.¹⁰³ The patimokkha was recited on the occasion of the celebration called uposatha in the monasteries, at the time of the new moon, for which the monks and the laity came together to participate. Thus the monasteries and the laity came into closer contact contributing to various levels of interactions. Two concerns of the vinaya rules were the dependence of the sangha upon the lay community and the appearance of the sangha in the eyes of that community, which gave the foundation for the greater interaction. In other words, points of contacts and interaction were incorporated into the vinaya rules, giving scope for the monastery to function as a viable social instrument.

The developments within Buddhist monasticism as briefly outlined above brought about a corresponding change in the monastic ideal as well: from that of the imperfect arhat to that of the Bodhisattva, the one on the path to Buddhahood, but as the one who would indefinitely delay his entry into nirvana in order to carry out his liberating activity for the benefit of all the sentient beings as long as possible through the accumulation and transference of meritorious actions. Though fully developed by the Mahayanists subsequently, the Mahasanghikas were the first people/sect responsible for the rise of punyaparinamana or transference of merit.¹⁰⁴ Philosophical and sectarian differences apart, the concept contributed to dana or gifts to the sangha in return for religious merit and social status. Gift-giving in the context of the construction and decoration of stupas was idealised in the texts of the Mahasanghika sects, and the devotees were promised a sure path leading to the heavenly abodes.¹⁰⁵ The Buddhist Avadanas are replete with references to the performance of dana in the context of the construction and embellishment of the caityas.¹⁰⁶

Organisation of Resources and the Exchange of Values

An important context of interaction between the monks and the lay people, about which inscriptional evidence does exist, was the process of organisation of human and material resources contributory to the erection of the Buddhist establishments at Amaravati. Apart from properly articulated plans, the construction of the stupas would have required mobilisation of men, materials and money. Central to the problem here is dana or gift to the caityas as symbols of the sangha, by which the construction and renovations of the Buddhist establishments of Amaravati were sustained over half a millennium as is manifest by a couple of hundreds of votive or donatory inscriptions found engraved on the sculptured slabs and other debris of the site. Invariably all these inscriptions furnish names and professions of the donors, the places of their origin, and often the purpose behind the meritorious act of giving dana.¹⁰⁷ The gifts were essentially in the form of different architectural parts constituting the caityas and not in terms of money or land as had often been the case with the Buddhist cave sites of the western Deccan.¹⁰⁸ A gamut of interactions of varied dimensions may be postulated here since the community of the locality, belonging to different professions, of various means, and of different social cadres or status, offered generous gifts to the sangha as symbolised by the mahacaitya. This kind of community patronage was preceded by a range of interactions among the monks and the people of the locality, ranging from admonishing dana to the actual process of arranging sponsors and getting the gifts executed to the liking of the patrons.

A close reading of the corpus of the epigraphs brings forth the different forms of contact among the various groups of donors figuring in the epigraphs. While a gift was instituted in return for religious merit, it is apparent that the donor had already come under the orbit of punyaparinamana or transference of merit and that the antecedent stages of direct or camouflaged modes of teaching the religious ethics could be anticipated. Probably, the functions of the monks who are variously referred to in literature and inscriptions as dhamakadhika, samyutakabhanaka etc. and the pendapatika had much to do with such admonitions and didactic roles in an extra monastic context. In addition to the stated desire of acquiring merit for oneself and the relatives, what the donor expected in return was the unregistered desire for promotion in the social scale, which was made feasible by the dana to the sangha. Though different categories of donors occur, ranging from members of the ruling elite to the tribals and occasionally the villagers en masse with the traders, bankers, socio-economic institutions like nigama and gosthi, agriculturists, artisans etc. in the midst, the common unifying factor that acted as the intermediary was, of course, the Buddhist sangha, functioning as the focus and inspiring people to act in certain prescribed modes. Dana as an economic institution was central to the contemporary economy¹⁰⁹ and as such a gift-economy constituted the base of the society during the period and in the region discussed in the present paper.

The enormous mobilisation of man-power necessary for building the Buddhist monuments held within its ambit the potential for exchange of values among the participating groups.¹¹⁰ Any such inquiry in the present context entails viewing architecture or art as a social object as well. Once a building is thus defined as a social object, layers of social relations and meanings, as well as of the religious and aesthetic implications, can be read out from the caityas of the site. Even changes of artistic or architectural styles could sometimes be linked to the uses of form or image as ideological signs.¹¹¹ Both the sculptures and the epigraphs have preserved evidence to understand what the monks and the lay devotees understood of the mahacaitya. Stray descriptions in the epigraphs as well as depictions in the reliefs bring out the centrality of the mahacaitya in contemporary visual imagery and cultural life. The religious symbolism woven into the stupa might have played a significant role in bringing the space and form of a building into cultural focus. The dhatu or corporeal remains enshrined in the stupa ensured the continuing presence of the Buddha in the midst of the monastic and lay communities.¹¹² The nature of evidence may not permit us to work out the precise manner in which the monumentality of the mahacaitya was articulated among the people, but the flocking together of the various socio-economic and ruling groups for sponsorship of building the mahacaitya at Amaravati is indication enough of a process of gradual exchange of values embodied in dana. This might have included, among other things, religious and devotional perceptions, literary and artistic sensibilities, aspects of technology and material culture etc. It was the long term and continuous association involved among different strata of people from across a wide geography for a collaborative venture that became pivotal in this gradual and bilateral cultural adaptation. The archaeological counterpart of this cultural adaptation is exhaustive and shows similarities of cultural layers with those noticed at the other early Buddhist centres of the peninsula.¹¹³

Modes of Patronage and the Interaction

The community patronage as represented by the epigraphs from Amaravati involves social relations and a conscious act of exchange among the donors and the Buddhist sangha. The stupa or the caitya i.e., the object of the dana, became the symbol of the Buddha and the sangha, and it even symbolised an alternative source or centre of power.¹¹⁴ Thus, the network of community patronage can be taken to demonstrate the close nexus between the vihara and the emergent socio-economic groups like gahapati, vaniya etc., and institutions like nigama, gosthi etc. at Amaravati—a pattern noticed throughout the Indian subcontinent during the heyday of Buddhism. It may also be suggested that one of the purposes of the donations was to seek association with the mahacaitya, the source of power, and seek legitimacy and validation for the donor-groups who were of relatively recent origin in the historical context of the eastern Deccan.

Architectural Layers as Indicators of the Process of Socio-economic Interactions

One particular feature of the debris unearthed so far at Amaravati that gets added significance in the context of the exchange of values is the large-scale renovations or reconstructions, which the monument underwent from time to time for nearly half a millenium. It is not sure as to the number of renovations that might have taken place or as to whether these were partial renovations or were additions as part of extensions. It is to be acknowledged, however, that the renovations were occasions of contact and association among the monks, the laymen, the traders, the architects and the sculptors. In fact, the renovations kept alive the culture-contact among the people involved in the process and ensured the continuity of the exchange of values in a fluent manner. The importance of the renovations was recognised by the ancient monks themselves and the prolonged process of reconstruction had even contributed to the rise of separate offices of monks or a category of specialised monks, as has been seen, within the monkish hierarchy, in charge of renovations as mentioned in the Buddhist canonical literature and the epigraphs. Though most archaeologists and epigraphists came across and noticed the renovations, they did not recognise the socio-economic implications that lay shrouded beneath the layers of the debris.

The Vihāras and the Megalithic Builders

Right from the late megalithic or early historical period onwards, say circa 4th-3rd centuries B.C. when the mahacaitya complex came into existence at least in a smaller scale, the harnessing of the resources for the construction the stupa had already begun stage by stage. Although the manner in which resources were channelised from the megalithic symbiotic economy of pastoralism and sedentary agriculture¹¹⁵ is not precisely known, the occurrence of megalithic burials at Amaravati both under the stupa as well as very close to it¹¹⁶ holds out possibilities of working out the nature of contact among the monks, the ruling elites, and the semi-pastoralists. The evidently funerary association of and the structural similarities between the caitya and the megaliths point to continuity in traditions and locations regarded as sacred and associated with the dead.¹¹⁷ Judging from the debris of the Amaravati stupa and what is said and vaguely reflected in the inscriptions, it is evident that the stupa stood as an imposing and monumental structure with much appeal to visibility and aesthetics. It is reasonable to suggest that the essential convergence of the structure of the megaliths and the stupa on the one hand, and the association of the cult of the dead inherent in the megaliths and of the mahaparinirvana symbolised by the stupa on the other promoted acculturation of the semi-pastoral and semi-agrarian people in the south-eastern Deccan during the period covered by the present study. The convergence of the artistic symbolism could be representative of the growth of receptiveness and acceptability on the part of the megalithic people towards the values and material culture of the migrant Buddhist religion and its cultural practices. Gregory Schopen has shown that immigrant Buddhist monastic communities intentionally chose to establish their viharas and stupas at sites already occupied by the proto-historical cemeteries. “Their choice of such sites would have placed the Buddhist complex at an already established focal point in the local landscape and in the local community. It would have established the Buddhist monastic community as the keepers, the guardians of the native dead, and claim thereby an important function for the newly arrived monks. It also would have assimilated the newcomers own central focus—the stupa—to local, pre-existing structures.”¹¹⁸

Amarāvatī as a Nodal Point

The flocking together of the donors to Amaravati from across a wide geography shows yet another dimension of the influence wielded by the monastic centre that cut across various socio-economic and religious groups. Donors hailed from places like Pataliputa¹¹⁹ (Pataliputra), Katakaselaka¹²⁰ (Khandasala) etc. Organising potential donors from the near and the far flung parts of peninsular India and getting their devotional, artistic and financial sensibilities translated and incorporated into monumental art involved groups of specialised monk-functionaries, architects, sculptors and artisans in the process. Going by the reference to navakamika, the donors probably did not directly employ sculptors or artisans but instead got their gifts executed by the reverent monks who possessed the technical skill and scriptural knowledge to ensure that the relief-panels or architectural parts concerned were in accordance with the symbolic and religious meanings that were woven into the very structure of the caityas.

There is evidence for indicating aspects of interaction between the Buddhist monastic establishment and the successive political power-structures in the eastern Deccan represented by the Mauryas, the post-Mauryan locality chiefs, the Sātavāhanas and the Iksvākus. This interaction was based on a bilateral relationship: the Sangha providing networks of loyalty and legitimation, which could be used for political consolidation and the state providing patronage and protection to the monastic establishments.¹²¹

The close interaction between the monastic base and the tribes / lineage groups / communities of the south-eastern Deccan is vaguely represented in the epigraphs. The different tribes that appeared either as donors or else as collective identities of the donor/donor-groups like Koramucaka, Pakotaka, Padipudiya etc.¹²² were being accommodated into a unified political system under the later Sātavāhanas in the process of the cultural development in the south-eastern Deccan. Though nothing precise is known about the way in which they were accommodated into the political and social framework, their participation in the cult of the caityas—which was mediated by the Buddhist monastic base at Amarāvatī and was the chief mode of religiosity and cultic practices supported by the whole range of population in the region—is fairly clear enough.

The Monastic Centre and the Mercantile Groups

Although the location of Buddhist monastic establishments at strategic points along trade routes was a subcontinental feature and has been widely accepted, direct evidence is wanting with regard to the possible interactions between the monastic centre at Amaravati and the socio-economic institutions like nigama and gosthi who figure as donors at Amaravati. Trade in this region was controlled and organised by these institutions and, on the basis of parallels from the western Deccan,¹²³ they may be said to have exercised some form of autonomous urban administration. One of the epigraphs from the site speaks of the gift of a suci (cross-bar) by the bhadanigama (righteous townfolk) of Cadakica, which was headed by merchants or financiers.¹²⁴ The reference to gosthi at Amaravati on a stele depicting scenes from the life of the Buddha and which specifically associated vamda nama gosthi with certain structures or architecture at Amaravati led scholars to surmise that the gosthi had an important role in the construction or reconstruction of the mahacaitya.¹²⁵ By dint of their mercantile association, the nigama and gosthi could act as intermediaries between the monastic centre and the vaniya, and also in channelising support to the sangha from the trading and other occupational groups. The evidence from Bhattiprolu, also in the eastern Deccan, of a gosthi-samana¹²⁶or a monk belonging to a gosthi is noteworthy in this regard. The close relationship among the nigama, bankers, and the rich caravan leaders¹²⁷ could strengthen or enhance the status of the Dhanyakataka nigama and the vamda nama gosthi as corporate socio-economic bodies which stood in comparison with the monasteries or sangha as a religious and ideological corporate, commanding influence over the society.

The Monastic Centre and the Gahapatis

The intercourse between the monks/monasteries and the gahapati at Amaravati can be prefaced with the canonical prescriptions—of course, norms suggested by the monks themselves—on the reciprocal duties of the householders and members of the sangha as formally set out in the Sigalavada Sutta of the Digha Nikaya. What was stressed in the Sutta was the householder's duty of providing generously for the material needs of the bhikkhus and, in return, the bhikkhu's duty of revealing to the householder the way to heaven.¹²⁸ This relationship was more of complementariness and long-term exchange, which holds out a series of implications for the present inquiry.

The most obvious example of the interaction between the monks and the gahapatis are, again, the numerous gifts unfailingly registered in the epigraphs. A break-up of the donor-groups indicates that the highest percentage of donors hailed from among the gahapatis.¹²⁹ The term stands for a landowner of substance, playing a crucial role in the extension of agriculture, and who distinguished himself from the rest of the socio-economic categories by a consciousness of position and pride in high birth.¹³⁰ They were big peasant proprietors who were also leaders of the rural agricultural communities. The rise of the gahapati as a socio-economic institution can be taken as signaling an agrarian economy of which that category was the pivot.¹³¹ It was from the ranks of the gahapatis that the trading class and the financiers emerged¹³²—an inter-relation that is attested to at Amaravati also as in the case of Samuda the vaniya, who was the son of Hamgha the householder,¹³³ and of a heranika, the treasurer.¹³⁴ Similar evidence from the eastern Deccan as a whole has already been taken by scholars to indicate the repetition of that process of socio-economic development which had occurred earlier in the Ganga valley in the context of the second urbanization.¹³⁵ Some gahapatis were prosperous enough to donate a caitya, a railing and a sculptured slab simultaneously.¹³⁶ It is thus apparent from the inscriptions that an agricultural surplus had been produced in the eastern Deccan by this time, which was being invested in trade as well as in sponsoring Buddhist monastic and religious activities. The patronage extended by the gahapatis to the sangha and vice versa indirectly helped in forging new links in society, which were not based on kinship, as was the case in the earlier megalithic social stratum. The comparatively recent origin of the gahapatis could also be one of the reasons for their ample support to the sangha in exchange for legitimacy to their pursuits.¹³⁷ As already pointed out at the outset, this type of community patronage was a marked feature of the early Buddhist sites of the peninsula where stupas or monastic establishments were constructed and embellished through the gifts from the community. The gahaptis were the backbone of this community patronage. The highest percentage of the gifts from this class and the origin of the monks from among the gahapati families are indicators of the volume of the interaction between the monastic centre and the gahapatis of the agrarian hinterland.

The Monastic Centre and Women

Extensive association between the nuns and the laity formed a regular feature of the interaction in the area around Amaravati as can be deduced from the epigraphs. Women appear at Amaravati as donors, upasika and bhikkhuni. The role of women in fostering/forming a Buddhist lay society in its cultural fullness remains to be inquired into though their part in the spread of the religion has already received scholarly attention. Buddhism would not have become the force that it did had it not been for the part which women played devotedly. What were previously highlighted were mainly the portrayals of women in the early Buddhist canonical texts,¹³⁸ women’s religiosity and their struggle for nibbana or liberation,¹³⁹ female roles in early Indian Buddhism,¹⁴⁰ the female patronage of monastic establishments,¹⁴¹ the inscriptional evidence on the bhikkhunis¹⁴² etc. The problem here is the possible interactions between the bhikkhuni i.e., the women within the monasteries on the one hand, and the women outside the sangha on the other, as can the understood from the epigraphs. The context of the interactions could be, to begin with, preaching to the laity by the nuns as indicated by the references to the nuns as atevasin or antevasin of senior monks who were Vinayadharas.¹⁴³ The presence of the nuns among the laity, especially among the womenfolk, and the consequent contact could be postulated as contributory to the dana instituted by women unaccompanied by their men folk. In channelising the gifts from the womenfolk, they would have played no less a significant part than that of the monks. The amazing number of female donors and their active participation in the religious life of the period as recorded in the epigraphs and the sculptural representations at Amaravati anticipate cultural and social contacts over a long period of time. As part of the monastic institution, the nuns along with the monks were successful in orientating social groups or categories by their presence as well as interactions.

The Monastic Centre and the Sculptors

The contrast between the artisan-donors and the sculptor-donors who were casually referred to by their names in the epigraphs on the one hand and the monk-supervisors of the art-activity who were also donors but commanded authority and status on the other is conspicuous. Nagabu, Nagabudhu, Dhamasa, Nadabhuti¹⁴⁴ and many anonymous artisans were at work at Amaravati under the supervision of navakamika, navakamikapadhana, mahanavakamika, vedikanavakamika etc.

Implications of Selection of Sculptural Themes

A potential instance of the exchange of religio-cultural outlook had been the very selection of themes for the narrative art and its acceptance on the part of the donors. The role of the monks as experts of canon and art is unmistakable though their role in a context of fixing the themes for sculptural representation has to be made out from their supervisory roles. Moreover, the repetition of the themes of the narrative art at all the early Buddhist centres further clarifies the issue and shows the predominance of the sangha and the monasteries in the exchange of values and outlooks. Yet another instance of the interaction, which lies hidden in the phraseology and structure of the donatory inscriptions, was the way in which the socio-economic groups as donors whom we have enumerated were identified, known and recognised by the Buddhist religio-cultural centre through the monasteries and the caityas as the institutional base. As revealed by the inscriptional formula, the donors as representatives of the social groups were being drawn or absorbed into a new world of the acquiring and transferring of merit.

A full and satisfactory reconstruction of the forms of interaction which ensued the early Buddhist art activity at Amaravati has not been attempted here in the absence of a detailed recording of events, the kind of which is available for certain medieval Indian temple-complexes like that of the Sun Temple of Konarka.¹⁴⁵ Some of the stages involved in the building process may be identified, albeit on the basis of the scanty evidence supplied by the Mahavamsa and Tupavamsa¹⁴⁶ with the hope that the inter-personal and inter-group interactions can be viewed in proper historical perspective and context. The selection of the site, preparation of the plans, recruitment of architects and artisans, supervision by monks, collection and transportation of the lime-stones, organising the patronage, arrangement of the infra-structural facilities etc. are some of the stages involved in the process. A process of installing the mahacaitya into the centre-stage of life and culture of the region is also involved during the period that we have highlighted. As already pointed out, it was the art-activity at Amaravati, which spans nearly four or five centuries and involved different socio-economic categories and relations, religious beliefs and practices, mythology, folk culture, architectural and engineering skills etc. that provided the context for the various forms of interactions that we have outlined. In fact, the production and appreciation of art were being streamlined by religious and monastic institutions through their own mediation of the community patronage.

III

This exercise in examining the nature and forms of interactions among the donor-groups offering patronage brings out certain features of the institutional base of the early Buddhist art activity and the social orientations at Amaravati during the six hundred year span between circa 300 B.C. and 300 A.D. The monastery emerges as the most developed and organised nodal point of the institutionalised form of Buddhism irrespective of the changing phases of sway of the monastic sects of Mahasanghika origin. The Caityakas were the most entrenched of the Mahasanghikas in the area probably because of their doctrinal and practical disposition towards specialisation in the construction and worship of caityas. So far as the archaeological and inscriptional evidence goes, the planning and construction of the caityas and the subsequent renovations and sculptural embellishments spanning across half a millennium and which involved processes of mobilisation of human, natural and economic resources in a large scale, constituted the most significant socio-economic and cultural activity at Amaravati during the period. Entrenched in the monasteries were the different cadres of the monks whose presiding and mediating roles/functions included preserving the canons through a tradition of textual scholarship and preaching the way of the Master, fixing the architectural plans and designs of the caityas and selecting themes for the sculptural and narrative art, and organising patronage from the various socio-economic categories, the tribal kin-based groups, the urban and mercantile corporations, and the representatives of political power. The inquiry also brings out an architectural tradition, not highlighted so far, within the monasteries and of the monastic contributions to the 'Amaravati School of Art'. Facilitating these activities were the various specialised groups of monks who may safely be characterised as having formed a monastic elite.

A particular socio-cultural formation is found to have come into existence in the period as reflected in the data regarding the monumental construction at the site. The evidence allows us to place the Mahacaitya as the pivot around which the newly emerging socio-cultural formation was getting affiliated or identified, with the monasteries as the institutional base that offered focus and ethics to the construction and renovation activities which marked the transition from the megalithic phase to the agrarian householding economy in the area around Amaravati. The ideology behind the dana on the one hand and the urban and the mercantile ethos on the other, both of which contributed to the socio-economic interactions as depicted in the epigraphs, can be traced to the construction and the renovations of the mahacaitya as well as to its monastic base of the different Mahasanghika sects. It is also clear that the major socio-economic and cultural experiences revolved around the mahacaitya as a cultural symbol and its visual imageries and worship. The epigraphs also speak about the centrality of the mahacaitya in the socio-economic and cultural interactions as well as the layers of influence which the monasteries were able to wield among the different social groups.

The inquiry has also highlighted the historical dimensions of the construction and frequent renovations of the caityas at Amaravati. It tends to characterise the lead role of the Caityaka monasteries in that process as the essential content of an early Buddhist paradigm or model of religious and socio-economic expansion and growth with the monasteries as the institutional base. The concepts of punyaparinamana and dana offered the doctrinal foundation for this early Buddhist activity. The inclusion of the practice of honouring and supporting the caityas as one of the seven conditions which the Buddha taught the Vajjians for attaining welfare and prosperity further supports our argument. The process of the construction and the renovations further accelerated the socio-economic processes, which was already set in motion in response to the linking of the Krishna valley with the sub-continental network of trade and communication controlled by the Mauryan empire. We further suggest that the early Buddhist activities at Amaravati, like the construction and the frequent renovations of the caityas and the viharas, and the instituting of gifts as part of a network of community patronage inspired by the doctrine of punyaparinamana or transference of merit and mediated by the monasteries, contributed to the typical social interactions and orientations or traits, structurally and functionally similar to those traits seen at the other early Buddhist centres of the time. The social groups offering patronage to the caityas belonged to varying degrees of development and different life styles, from tribal to the urban, and were getting in return legitimacy and social status through the patronage of the mahacaitya which was the visible symbol of the Buddha and the sangha. The pattern of dana at Amaravati reveals aspects of the early Buddhist notions of social exchange implicit in the dana. Patronage of the caityas was met with social status. The proliferation of the dana can be related to the architectural evolution of the mahacaitya from the earlier simple and modest form to the complex and richly ornamented mahacaitya of the early Christian centuries A.D. Inversely, the enlargement and the beautification of the mahacaitya can be related to the increasing volume of association of the social groups with the monasteries. So inextricably interwoven are the links between art and the institutionalised form of Buddhism at Amaravati that art was both the context and a medium for the spread of cultural values. The inquiry has looked at the art of Amaravati as an essential ingredient or part of the socio-religious and economic mechanism, and has searched for art in society and not for society in art. What loom large behind the processes outlined above are the vihara and the mahacaitya, taken together, as the institutional base of the early Buddhist art-activity at Amaravati.

(* The author acknowledges his gratitude to Dr. M. R. Raghava Varier (formerly of the University of Calicut), Mr. Robert Knox (formerly the India Curator at the Department of Asia of The British Museum, London), Dr. Naman Ahuja (onetime Fellow, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and presently Associate Professor, Dept. Arts & Aesthetics, JNU, New Delhi), and Dr. Akira Shimada (Associate Professor, New York State University), for going through a nascent version of this paper and for giving him their valuable suggestions.)

NOTES AND REFERENCES

1. Colonel Colin Mackenzie’s brief descriptions of the remains appeared posthumously first in the Calcutta Journal of 1822 and was reprinted in the Asiatic Journal, vol. XV, 1823 entitled ‘Ruins of Amravutty, Depauldina and Durnacotta', pp.464-78. Excerpts are quoted extensively in Robert Sewell, Report on the Amaravati Tope and Excavations on its Site in 1877, (repr., Delhi, 1973), pp.14-19 ; Bernard S. Cohn, ‘The Transformation of Objects into Artefacts, Antiquities and Art in the Nineteenth Century India’ in Barbara Stoler Miller ed., The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture, (Delhi,1992), pp.312-320; Jennifer Howes, ‘Mackenzie and the Stupa at Amaravati’, South Asian Studies, vol. 18, 2002, pp. 53-65.

2. Sir Walter Elliot excavated the site in 1845 though no report was published by him. The only account left by him was a letter which he had sent to Robert Sewell who published it along with the report of the latter’s excavation of the site in 1877. See, Robert Sewell, Report on the Amaravati Tope, pp.67-69. James Burgess conducted a major excavation in 1882. See his Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta in the Krishna District, Madras Presidency, Surveyed in 1882, (repr., Varanasi,1970). The excavations of Alexander Rea brought out, apart from sculptures and inscriptions, items of the material culture. A. Rea, ‘Excavations at Amaravati', Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1905-06 (1909), pp.116-119. A.S.I.A.R. 1908-09 (1912), pp.88-91; for the excavations of R. Subramanyam and K. Krishna Murthy, see Indian Archaeology: A Review,1958-'59, p.5; I.K.Sarma's excavations of 1973-'74 and 1974-’75 were systematic and brought out the stratigraphical sequence. See I.A.R. 1973-'74,pp.4-5; 1974-'75, p.2; The adjacent site of Dharanikota was excavated in 1962-'63, 1963-'64 and 1964-'65, establishing a clear stratigraphy and chronology. See I.A.R., 1962-'63,pp.1-2; 1963-'64 p.p. 2-4; 1964-'65, pp. 2-3.

3. See the brief historiographical review in Anamika Roy, Amaravati Stupa,, 2 vols.
(Delhi, 1994), pp. 3-6.

4. H. Sarkar, 'Emergence of Urban Centres in Early Historical Andhradesa', in B.M.Pande and B.D.Chattopadhyaya eds., Archaeology and History: Essays in Memory of Sri A.Ghosh, vol.ii, (Delhi,1987), p.632.

5 Ibid. , p. 632.

6. See note 2 above. Also, James Fergusson, ‘Description of the Amaravati Tope in Guntur', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, n.s., vol.3, (London, 1868), pp.132-166. Tree and Serpent Worship, (Indian repr., New Delhi,1971) ; C.Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures in the Madras Government Museum, Bulletin of the Madras Government Museum, N.S.,vol.iv, (repr., Madras, 1977); Douglas Barrett, Sculptures from Amaravati in the British Museum, (London,1954); Robert Knox, Amaravati:Buddhist Sculpture from the Great Stupa, (London,1992); H. Sarkar and S. P. Nainar, Amaravati, (New Delhi, 1960).

7. Brief notices of the contents of the epigraphs are given in Heinrich Lüders, A List of Brahmi Inscriptions from the Earliest Times to About A.D. 400, Appendix to Epigraphia Indica, vol.X,(repr., Delhi,1973); for the texts of the inscriptions published so far, see James Burgess, Notes on the Amaravati Stupa, (repr.,Varanasi,1972); Ramaprasad Chanda, ‘Some Unpublished Amaravati Inscriptions’, pp. 271-304. E.l.,vol.XV (1919-1920), pp. 258-275; Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures; P.Seshadri Sastri, ‘Dharanikota Dharmachakra Pillar Inscription, E.I., vol, XXXIV(1937-'38), pp.256-60; D.C. Sircar, 'Fragmentary Pillar Inscription from Amaravati' E.I., Vo. XXV (1963-64), pp. 40-43; A. Gosh and H. Sarkar, 'Beginnings of Sculptural Art in South-East India : a Stele from Amaravati', Ancient India, nos. 20-21, 1964-65. pp 168-177; A. Ghosh, ‘The early Phase of the Stupa at Amaravati, South-East India’, Ancient Ceylon, no. 3, 1979, pp. 97-103; H. Sarkar, 'Some early Inscriptions in the Amaravati Museum', Journal of Ancient Indian History, vol. IV, pts. 1-2 (1970 - '71), pp. 1-13; I.K. Sarma, 'Some More Inscriptions from Amaravati Excavations and the Chronology of the Mahastupa', Studies in Indian Epigraphy, vol.i, 1975, pp.60-74. 'More Prakrit Inscriptions from Amaravati', S.I.E, vol.vii, 1980, pp. 18-21. ‘Early Sculptures and Epigraphs from South-East India: New Evidence from Amaravati', in Frederick M. Asher and G. S. Gai. eds., Indian Epigraphy : Its Bearing on the History of Art, (New Delhi, 1985) pp.15-23.

8. P. L. Gupta, The Amaravati Hoard of Silver Punch-Marked Coins, Andhra Pradesh Government Museum Series, no.6, (Hyderabad, 1963); D.D. Kosambi, Indian Numismatics, (New Delhi, 1981), pp.140-44; 1.K.Sarma, Coinage of the Satavahana Empire, (Delhi, 1980), pp.41, 253-255; P. R. K. Prasad, 'Sada Coins in Coastal Andhra', Studies in South Indian Coins, vol.3, 1993,pp.53-63; D. Raja Reddy, Coins of the Megha Vahana Dynasty of Coastal Andhra, (repr. Hyderabad, 1993).

9. 1.K. Sarma,‘Northern Black Polished Ware from Amaravati Excavations (1974-75) and C-14 Dates,’ Bharati, New Series, no.16 (Professor R.C. Majumdar Volume), pp.187-208. ‘C-14 Dates, N.B.P. Ware and Historical Archaeology of Peninsular India,’ Journal of Indian History, vol. LII, pp.49-56. Sarma’s entry on 'South-eastern Deccan' in An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology, vol. i (New Delhi, 1989), pp.148-49. Entry on Amaravati in ibid.,vol.ii,pp.15-16; for details on Dharanikota, see K.Raghavachari’s entry on ‘Dharanikota’in ibid.,vol.ii,p.126. ‘Dharanikota and its Western Contacts’, Quarterly Review of Historical Studies, vol.xii, no.3, 1972-73, pp.167-170.

10. These belong to a group of texts of different languages and diverse chronological and geographical background, and include Mahaparinibbana Sutta, Cullavagga, Mahavastu, Jatakas, Kathavatthu, Mahavamsa, Tupavamsa, Divyavadana. References are cited in the concerned contexts.

11. The excavations of Sir Walter Elliot are typical examples. Yet, Amaravati was a crucial site for the maturing of colonial archaeology. See Tapati Guha-Thakurta, ' The museumised relic: Archaeology and the first museum of colonial India’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 34,1(1997), pp.35-38; the exploration and excavation of the mahacaitya was, ironically, accompanied by its dismemberment and disappearance. See Upinder Singh, ‘Amaravati: the dismembering of the Mahacaitya (1797 – 1886)’, South Asian Studies, vol. 17, 2001, pp. 19-40.

12. A.S.I.A.R. 1905-06, p.p.118-119. Ibid.1908-09, p.p. 88-91.

13. Seshadri Sastri,'Dharanikota Dharmachakra Pillar Inscription', pp. 257, 259.

14. Chanda, 'Some Unpublished Amaravati Inscriptions’, nos. 4 and 5, pp. 262 - 263.

15. Ghosh and Sarkar, ‘Beginnings of Sculptural Art in South-East India’, p.175.

16. I.A.R., 1962 - 63, pp.1-2; Ibid 1963-64, pp.2-4; Ibid 1964-65, p.2.

17. R.S.Sharma,Urban Decay in India . (c.300-c.1000), (New Delhi,1987), pp. 95-97.

18. Chanda, ‘Unpublished Amaravati Inscriptions,’ Nos. 4 and 5, pp.262 - 263; Seshadri Sastri, ‘Dharanikota Dharmachakra Pillar Inscription,’ p.259; Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no.36, pp. 279 - 80.

19. Sarkar, ‘Emergence of Urban Centres,’ p. 639.

20. K.Krishnaswamy, India’s Mineral Resources, (Second Edition, New Delhi, 1979), pp.200-201; Burgess, Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta, p.21.

21. K. R. Subramanian, Buddhist Remains in South India and Early Andhra History: 225 A.D. to 610 A.D. (repr. New Delhi, 1981), p.37.

22. H.P. Ray, ‘Early Historical Trade: An overview’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review,26, 4 (1989) p.p. 437-457. `Trade and contacts' in Romila Thapar ed., Recent Perspectives of Early Indian History, (repr. Bombay, 1996), p.p. 150,152.

23. I.K.Sarma, 'Northern Black Polished Ware from Amaravati', pp. 202-203.

24. See 'Forward’ by Jouveau Dubreauil in K.R.Subramanian, Buddhist Remains in South India, pp.v-vi; James Heitzman, ‘Early Buddhism, Trade and Empire’ in Kenneth A.R. Kennedy and Gregory L. Possehl eds., Studies in the Archaeology and Palaeoanth- ropology of South Asia, (New Delhi, 1984), pp.121-137; H.P. Ray, 'Trade and Contacts', p. 151.

25. H. Sarkar, ‘Emergence of Urban Centres,’ pp. 632-633.

26. See the discussions in Romila Thapar, 'Patronage and the Community' in Barbara Stoler Miller ed., The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture, pp. 19-34; Vidya Dehejia, 'The Collective and Popular Basis of Early Buddhist Patronage: Sacred Monuments, 100 B.C-A.D. 250' in ibid. Pp. 35-45.

27. This notion has been shared by a good number of experts over the years. For recent discussions, see Heinz Bechert and Richard Gombrich eds., The World of Buddhism : Buddhist Monks and Nuns in Society and Culture, (repr., London,1995), pp.7-8 ; Richard Gombrich, ‘lntroduction: The Buddhist Way’, in ibid., pp.9-14; Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism, (Oxford, 1998), p.92. With specific reference to early India, see Sukumar Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India, (repr. Delhi, 1988), pp.19-32.

28. Seshadri Sastri,'Dharanikota Dharmachakra Pillar Inscription', pp.259-60.

29. Burgess, Notes on the Amaravati Stupa, pp., 19ff. Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta, pp.53, 104; Seshadri Sastri, 'Dharanikota Dharmachakra Pillar Inscription', p. 259; Also, Ajay Mitra Sastri,' Buddhist Schools as known from early Indian Inscriptions', Bharati, (Bulletin of the College of Indology), No.2, 1957-158,pp.41-45; Dipak Kumar Barua, Viharas in Ancient India, (Calcutta, 1969), pp.199-201.

30. Samuel Beal, SI-YU-KI: Buddhist Records of the Western World, vol.ii, Book x, (repr. Delhi, 1969), pp. 221-23.

31. James Prinsep, 'Translation of an Inscription on a Stone in the Asiatic Society’s Museum, marked No.2’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 6:1, 1837, p. 220 as quoted in Cohn ‘Transformation of Objects’, p.314.

32. James Fergusson, Tree and Serpent Worship, Appendix ii.,pp. 67-69; Burgess, Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta,passim. Notes on the Amaravati Stupa, passim.

33. For a discussion on the source of gifts made by the monks and nuns, see Vijay Nath, Dana:Gift System in Ancient India, (New Delhi,1987), pp.76-78; Himanshu P. Ray, 'Bharhut and Sanchi—Nodal Points in a Commercial Exchange’ in Pande and Chattopadhyaya eds., Archaeology and History, vol. ii, p.627.

34. Devadhanna Jataka, Book i, no.6; Guna Jataka, Book II, no.157; Somanassa Jataka, Bk xv, no.505; Satadhamma Jataka, Book.II, no.179. See the discussion in H. P. Ray, The Winds of Change: Buddhism and the Maritime Links of Early South Asia, (Delhi, 1998), pp. 148 -155.

35. Gregory Schopen, Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India (Honolulu, 1997), p. 4.

36. See for e.g., Chanda, ‘Some Unpublished Amaravati Inscriptions,’ no.3, p. 262; Burgess, Notes on the Amaravati Stupa, p.30; B.C. Law, ‘Bhikkhunis in Indian Inscriptions’, E.I., vol.xxv, p.33.

37. Chanda, 'Some Unpublished Amaravati Inscriptions', no. 55, p.274.

38. Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, nos., 79 and 113, pp. 293, 300.

39. Ibid., no. 99, p. 297.

40. Ibid., nos. 80 and 100. pp. 293, 297.

41. Ibid., nos.5 and 126, pp. 274, 304.

42. Law, 'Bhikkhunis', p. 32.

43. H. Kern, Manual of Indian Buddhism, (repr. Delhi, 1974) , p.84. For a contrary view, see B. G. Gokhale, ‘The Early Buddhist Elite’, Journal of Indian History, vol. XLIII, Part II, August 1965, pp. 391-402.

44. For a listing of the various place names and professions of the donors, see Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, Appendices iii-v, pp.326-342.

45. For similar views on the status of the laity, see B. G. Gokhale, ‘Early Buddhism and the Brahmanas' in A. K. Narain ed., Studies in History of Buddhism, (Delhi, 1980), P.76.

46. Upinder Singh, ‘Sanchi : The history of the patronage of an ancient Buddhist establish- ment’, The Indian Economic and Social History Review, Vol. 33, no.1(1996), pp.15-16; For Kanheri and Bhaja, see Lüders, List of Brahmi Inscriptions, nos. 984-1034, 1078-1085 respectively.

47. Chanda, 'Some Unpublished Amaravati Inscriptions', nos. 31, 40, pp. 268, 270.

48. Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no. 5. 274.

49. Ibid., no. 70 p. 291.

50. Burgess, Notes on the Amaravati Stupa, no. 78B. p. 44.

51. Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no.34, p. 279. The bhanakas or bhanas were central to the preaching of Buddhism in ancient Sri Lanka also. See Deegalle Mahinda, ‘Reconsidering Buddhist Preaching: Bana Tradition in Sri Lanka’, in Kuala Lumpur Dhammajoti et. al. eds., Recent Researches in Buddhist Studies: Essays in Honour of Professor Y. Karunadassa, Colombo, 1997, pp. 427-465.

52. For Bharhut see, Lueders, A List of Brahmi Inscriptions no.773; for Sanchi, see Ibid, no. 347; for Bodh Gaya, ibid., no.949.

53. Sukumar Dutt, Early Buddhist Monachism, 600 B.C.-100 B.C., (London, 1924), pp.18, 127-28; Nalinaksha Dutt, Buddhist Sects in India, (repr. Varanasi, 1977), pp. 44-46.

54 N. Dutt, Early History of the Spread of Buddhism and the Buddhist Schools, (First Indian ed., New Delhi,1980), pp. 114-116 ; S. Dutt, Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India, (repr. Delhi, 1988), pp. 249-50; Also, T.W. Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, (9th ed., Delhi 1970) pp. 73-74.

55. Mahavagga, iv, 15, 4; T.W. Rhys Davids, Dialogues of the Buddha, vol.ii, (repr. London, 1923), pp. xii-xiii.

56. N. Dutt, Early History of the Spread of Buddhism, p.115.

57. Ibid.p.116; Also, N.Dutt, Buddhist Sects, p.46.

58. Hirakawa Akira, A History of Indian Buddhism:From Sakyamuni to Early Mahayana, (Indian ed., Delhi,1993), p.70.

59. Buddhist Sects, pp.62-64; S. Dutt highlights the cloistral base of the growth of the canon. Early Buddhist Monachism, pp.127 - 128.

60. Narendra Wagle, Society at the Time of the Buddha (Bombay, 1996), p. 73.

61. Lal Mani Joshi, Studies in the Buddhistic Culture of India during the 7^th and 8^th Centuries (Delhi, 1977), pp. 77-78.

62. Burgess, Buddhist Stupas of Amaravati and Jaggayyapeta, p.53; Cf. Lueders, A List of Brahmi Inscriptions, no.1250, p.148.

63. Ibid., nos.773, 987, 154.

64. Cullavagga, vi, 5, 2

65. Cullavagga, vi, 5, 3

66. S. Dutt, Early Buddhist Monachism, p.188. Buddhist Monks and Monasteries pp.145, 149.

67. R. N. Misra, Ancient Artists and Art-Activity, (Simla, 1975), p.19.

68. Romila Thapar, 'Patronage and the Community', p.30.

69. Gregory Schopen, Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks, p. 191.

70. H. P. Ray, Winds of Change, p.144.

71. Misra, Ancient Artists and Art-Activity, pp.17-21.

72. Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no.119, p.302.

73. Burgess, Buddhist Stupas, p.53.

74. Misra, Ancient Artists and Art-Activity, P.18.

75. Lüders, List of Brahmi Inscriptions, no.773

76. E.l., Vol. xx. Inscriptions C.I. and C.2, pp. 17, 20. Also, Misra, Ancient Artists, p.18.

77. Lüders, 'List of Brahmi Inscriptions', no.987.

78. Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no.69, p.290.

79. Ibid., no. 33, p.278.

80. Ibid., no.1l, p.275

81. Burgess, Notes on the Amaravati Stupa, p. 27.

82. N. Dutt, Buddhist Sects in India, pp.12 ff. P.V. Bapat ed., 2500 Years of Buddhism, (6th repr., New Delhi, 1997), pp.99-100; A.M. Sastri', Buddhist Schools as known from early Indian inscriptions, pp. 41-42; Andre Bureau's entry on 'Hinayana Buddism' in Mircea Eliade ed., The Encyclopaedia of Religion, Vol. 2, (New York, 1987) pp. 445-447; Hermann Oldenberg, The Dipavamsa, (Repr., New Delhi), 1982, pp. 42 - 43; W. Geiger, The Mahavamsa, (Repr., New Delhi , 1986), p. 26.

83. Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no.70, p. 293.

84. The Mahavastu gives prominence to the worship of the caityas, formally associated with the Caityakas. But, the text as such professes to be a work of the Lokottaravadins, a branch of the Mahasanghikas. N. Dutt considered the Lokottaravadins to be identical with the Caityakas. See, Buddhist Sects in India, p.60; for the contents of the Mahavastu, see Bhikkhu Telwatte Rahula, A Critical Study of the Mahavastu, (Delhi, 1978). The Avadanas also refer to a good deal of the rituals and modes of worship associated with the Caityakas. See Sharmishtha Sharma, Buddhist Avadanas, (Delhi, 1985), pp. 19, 150.

85. Andre Bareau and H.G.A. van Zeyst, 'Andhakas' in Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, Fascicule: A-Aca, (Colombo, 1961), p.602. See also note.29 above.

86. Amita Ray, Life and Art of Early Andhradesa, (Delhi, 1983), p.55

87. Bapat ed., 2500 Years of Buddhism, pp. 104-105; N. Dutt, Buddhist Sects in India, pp.123-125; Bareau and Zeyst, 'Andhakas', pp. 602-606;

88. Digha Nikaya, xvi, Mahaparinibbanasutta.

89. Ibid., xvi, Mahaparinibbanasutta.

90. The Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit texts like the Mahavastu contain portions on forms of stupa/caitya worship and the merit, which could be accrued thus. See Bhikkhu Telwatte Rahula, A Critical Study of the Mahavastu, pp.56-57, 168; W. G. Weeraratne, 'Avadana' in Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, vol. ii, Fascicule 3, p.397; Sharmishtha Sharma, Buddhist Avadanas, p.19.

91. Ghosh and Sarkar, 'Beginnings of sculptural art in south-east India', pp. 168-177; H. Sarkar, Studies in the Early Buddhist Architecture of India, (Delhi, 1966), p.100.

92. Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no.19. p.276; Also, N. Dutt, Buddhist Sects in India, pp. 65-68.

93. Sivaramamurti,Amaravati Sculptures,no.5l, pp.283-84.

94. M.G.S. Narayanan, 'The Temple in South India, in Foundations of South Indian Society and Culture, (Delhi, 1994), pp.309-325; Kesavan Veluthat, 'The Temple Base of the Bhakti Movement in South India’ in K. M. Shrimali ed., Essays in Indian Art, Religion and Society, (New Delhi, 1987), pp.151-59. Rajan Gurukkal, The Kerala Temple and Early Medieval Agrarian System, (Sukapuram, 1992).

95. Romila Thapar, Cultural Transaction and Early India: Tradition and Patronage, (Delhi, 1994), p.13; Cf. Stanley J. Tambiah, World Conqueror and World Renouncer: A Study of Buddhism and Polity in Thailand against a Historical Background,(Cambridge,1976). Also Trevor Ling, The Buddha: Buddhist Civilisation in India and Ceylon, (London, 1973), pp.137-139.

96. R. Thapar, Cultural Transaction, p.13.

97. Ibid., p.30; Romila Thapar, 'Renunciation : The Making of a Counter Culture?' in Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations, (New Delhi,1984), p. 72.

98. R.Thapar, 'Ethics, Religion, and Social Protest in the First Millennium B.C. in Northern India' in Ancient Indian Social History, pp.59-60. 'Renunciation: The Making of a Counter Culture’ p.92

99. H. P. Ray, Monastery and Guild: Commerce Under the Satavahanas, (Delhi.1986), p.207.

100. Xinru Liu, Ancient India and Ancient China: Trade and Religious Exchanges, (Delhi, 1988), pp.121-23, 167-73. Silk and Religion, (Delhi, 1996), p.

101. S. Dutt, Early Monastic Buddhism. Particularly chapts.v and vi, pp.110-76. Buddhist Monks and Monasteries of India, pp.53-97; H. P. Ray, The Winds of Change, pp. 126-132; R. Gombrich, 'The Evolution of the Sangha' in Bechert and Gombrich eds., The World of Buddhism, pp. 77-89.

102. Such groups are referred to as ‘pendapatika’ who lived in places denoting forests. Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no. 34, p. 279; no. 103, p. 298.

103. For the text and comparative studies of the pratimoksa of the Mahasanghikas see, Charles S. Prebish, Buddhist Monastic Discipline: The Sanskrit Pratimoksha Sutras of the Mahasanghikas and Mulasarvastivadins, (Indian ed. Delhi, 1996); the early Buddhist councils took up the points of difference on the Pratimoksa. See, Louis De La Vallee Pousin, The Buddhist Councils, (repr. Calcutta, 1976).

104. Har Dayal, The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature, (repr. Delhi, 1975). Particularly pp.188-193; M. R. Raghava Variar, 'Ideological Background of the Early South Indian Buddhist Inscriptions:A Case Study of the Amaravati Epigraphs,’ Paper presented at the Mythic Society Seminar, Bangalore, 1983 (Unpublished).

105. B. T. Rahula, A Critical Study of the Mahavastu, pp.56-57; 168-169

106. Sharmishtha Sharma, Buddhist Avadanas, pp.13-19; 39 ff.

107. For a detailed study of the economic and social contexts of dana in early India, see R. Thapar, ‘Dana and Daksina as forms of Exchange', in Ancient Indian Social History, pp.105-121; Vijay Nath, Dana: Gift System in Ancient India; Toshiichi Endo, Dana: The Development of its Concept and Practice (Colombo, 1987).

108. Vidya Dehejia, Early Buddhist Rock Temples, (London, 1972).

109. Vijay Nath, Dana:Gift System in Ancient India, p.190.

110. Barbara S. Miller, The Powers of Art, p.5.

111. Thomas A.Markus, Buildings and Power: Freedom and Control in the Origins of Modern Building Types, (London,1993), pp. xix-xx and pp.21,37; For a detailed discussion on the Buddhist symbolism of the stupa see, A.L.Dallapiccola and S. Z-A. Lellement eds., The Stupa: Its Religious, Historical and Architectural Significance,(Wiesbaden,1980) ; Karl Werner, Symbols in Art and Religion: The Indian and the Comparative Perspectives, (Indian edition. Delhi, 1991).

112. Gregory Schopen, Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks, pp. 114-147; Kevin Trainor, 'Constructing a Buddhist ritual site: stupa and monastery architecture’, Marg, vol. xivii, no.3, pp. 25, 32

113. See no.9 above.

114. R. Thapar,‘Patronage and the Community’, pp. 23 - 24; Cultural Transaction and Early India, pp. 28-30.

115. A comprehensive treatment of the megalithic culture of Andhra is given in V.V. Krishna Sastry, The Proto and Early Historical Cultures of Andhra Pradesh, (Hyderabad, 1983), pp.51-114; For the rise of an exchange network in the megalithic context, see Anjana Chatterjee, ‘Socio-economic Conditions in Early Andhra, 200 B.C.-300 A.D’, Unpublished Ph.D Thesis, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 1976, pp. 40-44; To see how such networks formed the basis of political formation, see Sudarshan Seneviratne, ‘Kalinga and Andhra’, The Indian Historical Review, vol. vii, nos. 1-2, 1980-81, pp. 54-69.

116. Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, 1908-909, PP. 90-91.

117. Jorinde Ebert, ‘Parinirvana and Stupa: Was the Stupa only a Symbolical Depiction of the Parinirvana?’ in Dallapiccola and Lallement eds., The Stupa: Its Religious, Historical and Architectural Significance, pp.219228; S. Seneviratne, ‘Social Base of Early Buddhism in South East India and Sri Lanka (c.3rd Century B.C.-3rd Century A.D.)’. Unpublished Ph.D Thesis, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 1985, pp. 536-538; R. Thapar, ‘Patronage and the Community,’ p.24.

118. Gregory Schopen, ‘Immigrant Monks and the Proto-historic Dead: The Buddhist Occupation of Early Burial Sites in India’, Festschrift Dieter Schlingloff (Reinbek, 1995), p. 237.

119. Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no. 19, p. 276.

120. Ibid., no. 37, p. 280

121. Sudarshan Seneviratne, ‘Kalinga and Andhra’; H. P. Ray, Monastery and Guild, pp. 175-183; Romila Thapar, The Mauryas Revisited (Reprint, Calcutta, 1993), p. 24.

122. For Koramucaka and Pakotaka, see A. Ghosh, ‘The Early Phase of the Stupa at Amaravati’, nos. 24, 25, p. 102; for Padipudini, see Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no. 22, p. 276.

123. Kiran Kumar Thaplyal, Guilds in Ancient India. (New Delhi, 1996), pp. 84-109.

124. Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no. 87, p. 294.

125. Ghosh and Sarkar, 'Beginnings of Sculptural Art', p. 175.

126. H. Luüders, A List of Brahmi Inscriptions, no. 1333, 158-159.

127. Moti Chandra, Trade and Trade Routes in Ancient India, (New Delhi, 1977), p. 173. There is a reference to dhanikasattanika, wife of a rich caravan leader at Amaravati. See Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no. 108, p.299.

128. Digha Nikaya, xxxi, Sigalavada Suttanta.

129. Raghava Variar, 'Ideological Background of the Early South Indian Buddhist Inscriptions'.

130. Richard Fick, The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha’s Time, (Calcutta, 1920), p.253; for a comprehensive discussion on the subject, see Uma Chakravarti, The Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism, (New Delhi, 1996), pp. 65-93; Romila Thapar, 'Early India: an Overview' in Interpreting Early India (Second Impression. Delhi, 1994), p.121.

131. Uma Chakravarti, The Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism, pp. 85-86; R. Thapar, 'Early India: an Overview', p. 121.

132. R. Thapar, 'Early India: on Overview', p. 122.

133. Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no. 102, p. 298.

134. Ibid, no. 86, p. 294.

135. R. Thapar, 'Early India: an Overview', p. 122.

136. Lueders, A List of Brahmi Inscriptions, no. 1216, p. 142.

137. R. Thapar, From Lineage to State: Social Formations in the Mid-First Millennium B.C. in the Ganga Valley (Bombay, 1984). pp. 109-111.

138. I.B. Horner, Women under Primitive Buddhism, (Repr., Delhi, 1975) ; B.C. Law, Women in Buddhist Literature. (Repr., Varanasi, 1981).

139. Kathryn R. Blackstone, Women in the Footsteps of the Buddha: Struggle for Liberation in the Therigatha (Surrey, 1998).

140. Peter Skilling, ‘Nuns, Laywomen, Donors, Goddesses: Female Roles in Early Indian Buddhism’, Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, vol. 24, no. 2, 2001, pp. 241-274.

141. Janice D. Willis, 'Female Patronage in Indian Buddhism' in Barbaba Stoler Miller ed., The Powers of Art, pp. 46-53. The article is not free from erroneous statements with respect to data on Amaravati. For example, Camtisiri, the sister of King Camtamula is taken as the principal donor at Amaravati though no known epigraph from the site refers to the person so referred to. See p. 50.

142. B. C. Law, ‘Bikkhunis in Indian Inscriptions’; Nancy J. Barnes, ‘The Nuns at the Stupa: Inscriptional Evidence for the Lives and Activities of Early Buddhist Nuns in India’, in Ellison Banks Findly, Women’s Buddhism: Buddhism’s Women, Boston, 2000, pp. 17-36.

143. Sivaramamurti, Amaravati Sculptures, no.70, p. 291.

144. Ibid, no. 76, p. 292; H. Sarkar, 'Some Early Inscriptions in the Amaravati Museum,’ nos. 45, 46, 47, p. 4; Lüders, A List of Brahmi Inscriptions, no. 1298.

145. Alice Boner, 'Economic and Organisational Aspects of the Building of the Sun Temple of Konarka' in K.M. Shrimali ed., Essays in Indian Art, Religion and Society, Indian History Congress Golden Jubilee Year Publication Series, Vol. 1, (New Delhi, 1987), pp. 99-108.

146. Wilhelm Geiger, The Mahavamsa, (Reprint, New Delhi, 1986), pp. 187-219; B.C. Law, The Legend of the Topes, (Calcutta, 1945), pp. 64-92.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Friday, October 14, 2011

Monks, Monasteries and Mahācaitya: Towards Reconstructing the Institutional Base of Early Buddhist Art Activity at Amarāvatī - N. J. Francis

I

Preliminaries

Architectural Layers as Indicators of the Process of Socio-economic Interactions