A 2000-year-old aesthetically carved sculpture of dancing Yakshas has been excavated from a famous Buddhist site in the State’s Krishna district close to a National Highway that runs between Vijayawada and Hyderabad.
The fragmented sculpture on a stone slab measuring 15 x10 x5 cm had once adorned the roof of the Maha Stupa at Gummadi Durru in the district.
Giving details of the recent exploration at the site, he said that the sculpture depicts the Yakshas playing instruments and dancing.
“The garments and facial expressions of the Yakshas in the sculpture are akin to the Amaravathi school of Buddhist art,” he said.
The site was first discovered during the excavation made by East India Company during British Raj and has been unapproachable till recently as it was covered with thick bushes and shrubs.
After cutting the thick forest strip embracing a hillock at the site, ASI has taken up the excavation work for the conservation of the antiques, Das said.[Sculpture of dancing Yakshas excavated in Hyderabad]

In Hinduism besides the pantheon of main Gods, there are a large number of lesser ones like the snake-spirits (Nagas) and earth-spirits (yakshas). Of these the Yakshas associated with Kubera and are considered friendly, but those of the female gender, the Yakshis, would sometimes have you for dinner. Some Yakshas are romantic, like the one who convinces a cloud to take a message to his wife in Kalidasas’s Meghadūta, while some are quiz masters, like the one Yudhistira encountered near a lake.

From Hinduism, Buddhism too inherited the yakshas and they are the attendants of Vaiśravaṇa, a chief modeled like Kubera. One famous sculpture from the Mauryan era is that of the Didarganj Yaksi (pic). The stupa railings in Bharhut in Madhya Pradesh are carved with both yakshas and yakshis besides scenes from the Jataka tales.

See Also: Buddhist Art at Amaravati

Hindustan Times: ASI to carry out major excavations in Nalanda

According to Director (Exploration and Excavation) RS Fonia of ASI, “The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) gave us detailed satellite imagery of about 16 square kilometre area around the ancient site of Nalanda. Till date excavations have been carried out only in 1.5 sq km area.”

“The satellite data helped us to understand the topography and structural remains around Nalanda and this year during August-September ASI carried out initial explorations leading to the discovery of a number of mounds in villages of Baragaon, Begampur, Machhardiha, Juafardih, Rukministhan,

Paparnausa, Jagdishpur, Sarichak, Kul, Bhadari, Nanana, as also remains of ancient sculptures, gates, pillars, potsherds of Red ware of medieval period,” he said.

Fonia said, “Baragaon used to be part of the trade route to Nepal and Lhasa from eastern India to reach China and Central Asia.”

History of Nalanda goes back to the days of Mahavira and Buddha in the sixth century BC. It was the place of birth and nirvana of Sariputra,one of the most famous disciples of Buddha.

See Also: Reconstructing Nalanda,  Along Huen Tsang’s path, again

A part of a Buddhism sutra was found inside one of the two giant Buddhas of Bamiyan, providing a hint for unveiling the mystery surrounding the creation of the statues, a Japanese news agency reported Sunday.

The fragment of the scripture was believed to be the original Sanskrit document, written with the letters often used in the 6th and 7th century, according to a Kyodo news dispatch from Kabul.

Although various scripts have been found inside Buddha statues in Japan, it was the first time a sutra was found inside an Afghan Buddha statue, Kyodo said. The script was written in “Gilgit/Bamiyan type one characters,” which were used in a region that spread over what is now northern India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, Kyodo said.

The document was the beginning section of a sutra that spelled out the basic belief of Buddhism and said all things were mortal, Kyodo said. It was written on pieces of birch bark and wrapped in a piece of cloth with mud balls, which could have been symbols of Buddha bones, according to the researching team, Kyodo reported. [Secret sutra found in rubble of Bamiyan Buddha]

Last year a Buddhist residence was discovered by a Japanese team in Bamiyan and at that time I wrote

Archaeology has returned to Afghanistan in a big way. First there was the announcement regarding the Bactrian Gold.. Then there was constant news about the search for a third reclining Buddha in Bamiyan by Zemaryali Tarzi based on a note written by Huen Tsang. Now a Japanese archaeologist team has found some new structures in Bamiyan.

Besides this, the Japanese team also discovered Buddhist caves dating back to the eighth century about 120 KM west of Bamiyan, but when it comes discovering documents, this is not the first discovery in that region. Last year ancient documents, which for some reason is called Buddhism’s Dead Sea Scrolls were found in Bamiyan. Actually there were found in 1996 and was smuggled out to Pakistan. Some of these manuscripts, the earliest of which were dated to 1st century AD were some of the oldest Buddhist manuscripts ever written. While the recently discovered sutra was written in Sanskrit, more earlier ones were written in a language called Gāndhārī.

“Before the discovery of these manuscripts, Gandhari was primarily known through coin legends and inscriptions which are highly formulaic and have a limited vocabulary,” he said. “These manuscripts therefore substantially increase the corpus of documents in this language.”

The Gandhari manuscripts are constructed of birch bark which becomes brittle with age, or palm leaf. A large number are damaged or fragmentary, and they are exceptionally difficult to read: there are no spaces between words and the spelling was never standardized. For example, the Sanskrit word dharma, meaning ‘law’ or ‘teaching’ may appear in Gandhari as dharma, darma, dhama, dhrama, or dhrarma. [Master of Gandhari sheds light on Buddhism]