Bhubaneswar: Remnants of a Buddhist site dating back to the 9th century CE were discovered near Ganeswarpur village of Cuttack district by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) team recently. The site, scattered with Buddhist archaeological remains, was found near a small mound inside a rice field at the far end of the village.
A five-member team from INTACH’s Odisha chapter visited the site located just 150 metres away from the Birupa embankment to conduct a preliminary survey and document the archaeological remains. According to Deepak Kumar Nayak, co-convenor of INTACH’s Cuttack Chapter, the present and ancient floodplains of the Birupa River are dotted with numerous Buddhist sites on both banks.
The discovery of a large headless Abalokiteswar image, nearly six feet in height, on the ground near a small grassy mound is of historic significance, he said. “Although the head is missing, the iconography closely matches the Abalokiteswar images found at the nearby Buddhist sites of Ratnagiri, Udayagiri, and Lalitgiri,” Nayak said. The excavated Buddhist stupa in the nearby Rameswar village is situated across the river, where the images are now being worshipped by the villagers as Hanumancheswara Mahadev.
INTACH team member Biswajit Mohanty speculated about the existence of a Buddhist stupa, which had these large images and was buried under the silt due to frequent flooding of the Birupa River. The disfigured images lying at the site and a small shrine are also indicative of destruction by invaders during the Afghan-Mughal period, he added. Mohanty said that two temples in the village, such as Panchapandavar Temple and Tareswara Temple, were demolished during Kalapahada’s invasion in the 16th century CE. “The remains of the base of a temple and many odd-shaped kiln-baked bricks suggest that either a temple or a stupa is buried in the mound,” Mohanty said. The INTACH team has also discovered a large number of broken potsherds, which include both red and blackware. The INTACH Cuttack chapter has sought the help of the ASI, the State Archaeology Department, and the Culture Directorate of the Odisha government to dispatch experts to the spot for further detailed surveys of the ancient site.