According to Buddhist traditions, the Mauryan emperor Asoka the great traveled to South India three times in his life. The third time he never went back, it is widely held by Buddhists in India. As his grandfather Chandragupta Maurya came to breathe his last moments in South Karnataka in Sravanabelagola (literally the Bella Kola or white pond of the Sramana) along with his Jain guru Bhadrabahu in BCE 4th century; Asoka also is said to have spent his last days in northern Karnataka in BCE 3rd century. In Kalaburgi district bordering with Maharashtra where the river Bhima creates many distributary wetlands and irrigated paddy field networks this ancient land of Sannati remains almost unknown to the world.
Amidst vast green paddy fields now nurtured by the Sannati regulator cum bridge we have the historic places and archaeological sites of Sannati and Kanganahally. These were sites of two ancient stupas built by Emperor Asoka towards the end of his life, and perhaps he embraced death peacefully on these tranquil shores of Bhima amidst the meditating cool greens and blues. He traveled the whole subcontinent following the footsteps of the compassionate one and made more than 84,000 stupas and pillars with distinct rock edicts wherever the Buddha had spoken.
Hally or Halli is a common suffix to place names in Kannada land that is equal t to Pally in Tamilakam and Kerala, denoting a Buddhist sacred space or the site of a stupa, Chaitya or Vihara; the keyword having southern Pali or Dekhini Pali/Prakrit and Tamil connection that has been used by all the minorities including Jews, Christians, Jains and Muslims in South India for their worshiping places. In Andhra there is a place still existing called Kanagana Palli and the ancient name of Konark in Odisha was originally Kanaka Mana in Buddhist times. Nayapally is in Odisha or ancient Kalinga of Asokan times and Nampally is in Hyderabad. Another Konakamana is in Nepal Tarai. Kanaga or Kanaka indicating gold is a key affix to place names throughout Tamilakam and Keirala suggesting the Buddhist origin of the place as the idols of the Buddha were originally made in gold and the Viharas were having much-donated gold.
The relics of the ancient structures first built by Asoka and later modified and rebuilt many times by Satavahanas at Sannati were underneath the surface of the soil for thousands of years and came up to the view of the world only in 2001 when Archaeological Survey of India excavations began here. The ruined foundation of the ancient stupa was recovered and an Asokan inscription or huge rock edict was also recovered from the nearby Chandraleswari Hindu temple.
In 1986 when the Sanctorum of this Chandralamba Kali temple collapsed the Asokan inscription in Dhamma script was revealed. Many stones and pillars have gone into the making of many other recent structures in the neighborhood. The huge flag post foundation of the temple could also be a modified column base of an Asokan pillar. It has happened in Bhubaneswar Bhaskareswara temple and even the Varavur and Mattanchery Udyaneswara shrines in Kerala are sites of such Asokan pillar modifications argue local subaltern historians.
The invaluable portrait sculptural reliefs of Asoka with his queens and consorts and his worship at the stupa were discovered from the dislodged panels of the stupa here. The Brahmi or Dhamma script inscription “Rayo Asoka” is below the portrait relief in sandstone. Historians like Romila Thapar as in her Asoka and the Decline of the Mauryas; have been citing it and many archaeologists are of the opinion that the foundation of the Sannati stupa is older than the Sanchi stupa and it is a later Asokan construction. But all these invaluable treasures along with many huge, more than life-size sculptural depictions of the Buddha are simply piled up in the site sheds and many relics are already stolen from this ASI enclosure in the last twenty years.
The ASI site is literally closed to researchers and the general public. The stupa and relics are not open to the people and visitors from far and wide who are driving in as we did during the Christmas holidays in December 2021. We drove more than 2000 KMs altogether from Kerala to reach Sannati and in return. Photography and videography are strictly prohibited and even for research purposes photos are not allowed. We emailed for permission in advance but were forced to wait for hours and eventually official sanction was denied saying that the application had to be given two weeks in advance online. The indifferent official at the site also said that it is “a sensitive” site. Times of India on 22 January reported that the Kalaburagi MP Mr. Umesh Jadhav is seeking the support of ASI for conserving and declaring Sannati as a world heritage site. (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hubballi/excavation-will-resume-at-sannati-and-kanaganahalli/articleshow/89049681.cms )
The ASI that is devised to conserve and present such historic treasures and archaeological heritage before the people are literally hoarding and concealing it from the collective consciousness and public discussion. It is a grave offense and crime against humanity and the civilized world as we are all deeply concerned about our common heritage and cultural history of the people. The play of power politics, manufacturing amnesia, and erasure of history at the cost of the people’s tax money are evident. The vital memories of Asokan Buddhist legacies in South India are thereby nipped in bud by a hegemonic anti-people ruling bureaucratic nexus and axis of erasure.
This is a strategic act of the Hindu commonsense and the Brahmanical consensus against the memory and history of Buddhism in India that posed a challenge to caste and Varna and the revival of the Vedic Varnasramadharma system of social stratification. By burying this world heritage that is more than two millennia old, the advocates of Hindu Dharma are literally manufacturing and marketing the 16th-century brief Brahmanical “empire” of Vijayanagara in Hampi. Public funds are pumped into the literal fabrication of Hampi as an “ancient” wonder and the reinforcement of the Karnataka Sanskrit University there in true Brahmanical hegemonic fashion. Sannati is now transferred to the Hampi circle of ASI. Earlier it was with the Dharward circle. These beureaucratic churnings are also done towards subsiding and obliterating the centrality of this world heritage site.
The whitish sandstone of the region has withstood more than two millennia of seasoning and severe onslaughts of time and aggressive invasive violence done by humans to humanity and civilization at large. Almost all the stones are having Dhamma Lipi inscriptions too, which make them unique and truly cosmopolitan. Even from the underbelly of medieval Hampi ancient Buddhist sculptural and architectural relics were found that are exhibited in the Lotus Mahal museum within the Hampi archaeological site. The Buddhist stone panel reliefs exhibited there date back to BCE second and first centuries the immediate post-Asokan era in the Deccan.
In Ayhole of ancient Ayyavolly or Ayya Pally there are Buddhist monasteries in stone atop the hillock facing the current huge shrine in elephant butt or apsidal or Gaja Prishtta style that is a reminiscence of the Buddhist Chaitya cathedral architecture. There are double-storied granite monasteries with Buddha reliefs and the demolished statue of the Buddha. The Jain shrine there could also be a Buddhist shrine in the beginning as its foundation clearly shows the iconographic and architectural shreds of evidence of typical Buddhist motifs and imagery including the Dhamma Simhas and Dhamma Gajas the Asokan ethical elephants and lions representing the Sakya Simha who is also imagined by Asoka as an exquisite elephant.
In Pattadakallu or Pattadakal also, the ancient Asokan Buddhist style is evident and the typical iconogrphic motifs of Buddhism prevail though in the sanctum sanctorums of the ancient pagodas some Lingas and Yonis or Sakti figures are placed in later periods. Badami or Vatapi caves and shrines were also originally Buddhist and later Jain and Brahmanical ones were created by invading and expelling the original creators of that series of caves on the red stone hillock.
In the Kalinga region now known as Odisha, there are many rock-cut caves in Khandagiri and Udayagiri near Bhubaneswar that are now known as Jain vestiges. These were originally carved and dedicated to Buddhist Sanghas by emperor Asoka and after his reign when Kharavela the Jain king came to power he gave it all to Jain monks. Now it is known as a Jain site. These kinds of appropriations, handovers and later modifications have happened in many early Buddhist sites from the Kalingan, Deccan regions to Tamilakam regions and Kerala too. Many ancient Vattams or well-rounded stupa like sanctums all over Kerala and apsidal or Gajaprishtta ones were originally Buddhist ones as in Ayhole or ancient Ayya Pally in northern Karnataka. As we have seen the Bahujans are chanting the Sarana mantras of Ayyappa and coming to the ancient Buddhist shrine of Savarimala even today.
As we entered Kerala regions of Wayanad from Karnataka through the Brahmagiri ranges we could see ancient routes of cultural invasions and changes that happened in early Middle Ages. The ancient vihara called Tiru Amalakee Vihara or Tiru Nelly Pally is modified into a Brahmanical Hindu temple post-Middle Ages with two executions stones or Kazhuveti Kallus placed at the entrance. This could be one of the first Buddhist shrines to be captured and converted in the Kerala regions.
But still, the ancient aqueduct in huge granite stone pillars are still intact that is a lasting Buddhist construction requiring imperial engineering skills and technology like the one offered perhaps by the vast Mauryan empire that stretched from the Gandhara to Tamilakam. All the ancient temples in Kerala too are depicting the Asokan Dhamma Gaja, Simha, Vyala motifs at the foundation, evidencing their ancient Buddhist origin and later modification. It is the same in Pulpally, Kottiyur and many neighboring shrines at the edges of Wayanad landscape that is a Deccan projection into the Kerala land.
Kazhuveti Kallus or execution stones are still found in Asamannur the Ur of Asoka Mannan east of Perumbavur, Tiru Koditanam near Vazhapally in Changanasery and Koothattukulam Siva shrine in Ernakulam district. On the Asamannur second execution stone on the west, the Vattezhutu writing clearly evidences the execution done in the tenth century. In Ayiranikulam shrine Vattelutu inscription in Thrissur district too, the execution of Buddhists is mentioned in the expression “Maurya Kshata.” Vattezhutu itself is a medieval modification of Asokan Dhamma scripts in Kerala and Tamilakam. The detailed analysis of Asamannur inscription by the veteran Kerala epigraphist Prof T Pavithran may be seen in Buddhism and Kerala edited by the author and published by Sankara University Press in 2021 available at SSUS Kalady publication counter.
We could also see the 18th century capital and fort of the tiger of Mysore; Tipu Sultan where he fought his last with the British imperial forces at Srirangapatna north of Mysore the Ur or dominion of Mahisha another demonized Bahujan Buddhist leader of the people like Mahabali and Ravana who were deposed by Vaishnavite Brahmanism through cheat. Demonization and othering were strategies used by the hegemonic forces of monopoly against Asoka too, but many new books and research projects and the will of the people have revitalized his memory as that of the enlightened one himself.
Academic knowledge-based institutions seeking truth and justice like Asoka University or the revived new Nalanda University and similar research institutions in Indian culture and history or archaeology with the support of all the Buddhist countries of Asia and the civilized world institutions like the UN have to come together to save the resting place and relics of Asoka the great from the forces of repressive erasure and hegemonic obliteration of the common heritage and cultural legacies of the people.
There is an urgent need to open up and conserve the ancient Asokan sites in Karnataka as many historical and archaeological evidences are resurfacing despite the severe attacks of distortion and amnesia. These vital civilizational evidences of ethical life, material culture and practical wisdom must be conserved for the future and preserved as world heritage by UNESCO and other global agencies and cultural institutions of humanity.
It will also improve the economy of the region reeling under the pandemic. The aggressive and annihilating attitude towards our own cultural pasts and civilizational roots would be catastrophic and self-destructive. Let truth and justice prevail. Let the truly cosmopolitan and international Asokan legacy come to light and the attention of the whole world as in its ancient great glory.
Dr Ajay S. Sekher; January 2022
ajaysekher@gmail.com 9895797798