SACRED GEOGRAPHY OF ANDHRA PRADESH- Part 2
Andhra Pradesh is well known for its Buddhist monuments. The present lecture concentrates on the development of Buddhist art and culture in Andhra Pradesh. The Buddhist stupa at Amaravati is one among the three famous Indian Sculptural schools of art; the others being Gandhara and Mathura. The Satavahanas ruled Andhra region for about four centuries. Though they followed Vedic or Brahmanical religion, they patronized Buddhism as well. It helped Buddhist to reach its height in Andhra. A group of people from Deccan seem to have visited the court of Bimbisara, father of Asoka, and enacted the life story of the Buddha, from the birth to the Maha parinirvana as drama, in front of the king. This is referred to in a Buddhist literature, Avadana Sadaka, which belongs to the third century BCE. It testifies the trade activities, which flourished between the North and South India and the spread of Buddhism in the South even during the Mauryan period. The area in between the rivers Krishna and Godavari, located near the coastline, provides a number of Buddhist stupas belonging to the period from 200 BCE to 300CE. Some of them were hewn out of stone and others were... Read More