Nagarjunakonda (1954-60)- The Historical Period (Vol-II)

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It gives me great pleasure to present before the scholars this second volume of Nagarjunakonda Excavation Report, which is the outcome of a special project undertaken to unveil the extensive remains in the valley in 1954. As a result of this great event, a new approach to combat the total destruction of the cultural heritage was possible by transplanting the ruins. Within a span of six years more than hundred sites were unearthed ranging in dates from Early Stone Age to the late medieval period. Nagarjunakonda came into prominence under the Ikshvaku rulers when structural activities and artistic pursuits reached their height. This present volume gives an account on the historical period relating to the chronological framework with details of religious and secular structural remains, inscriptions, coins besides various other items of daily use. After the decline of the Ikshvaku rulers, Nagarjunakonda witnessed a fall both in political glory and in artistic tradition, which regained its lost position during the Bahmanis, Vijayanagra and Gajapati Kings.

In bringing out this volume, a great deal of hard work has been done by all the members of the Publication Section of the Archaeological Survey of India for which I express my thanks to Dr. B.R. Mani, Director (Pub.), Dr. Arundhati Banerji, S.A. (Pub.), Sh. Hoshiar Singh, Production Officer (Pub.), Dr. Piyush Bhatt and Gunjan Kumar Srivastava, Assistant Archaeologists (Pub.) besides all the members of Drawing Section and Photo Section. Thanks are also due to Sh. K.M. Bhadri, Director (Epigraphy), Mysore, along with his staff, Dr. P.K. Trivedi, S.A. (Excavation Branch IV), Bhubaneswar and Dr. A. Jha, Dy. S.A. (Jaipur Circle).

The Nagarjunakonda Excavation Report (Text) Vol. II (Historical period) is now completed and is presented in the following pages.

The Editor, at the outset, wishes to record his thanks to the Directors General (Sarvashri J.P. Joshi earlier and M.C. Joshi subsequently) for having given the requisite support to the effective processing of the text of the Report. The Editior also finds a fulfillment for himself in this, by virtue of his close association with Nagarjunakonda, in the initial years of the Salvage Excavation Project.

While dealing with the draft chapter prepared by several younger colleagues in the Survey, under Dr. Subrahmanyam and the line drawing material made available, a degree of insufficiency was noted by the Editor, both regarding incomplete stratrigraphic material in the several sites, on the basis of relevance to the story of the valley sites, and also by the non-utilisation of available stratigraphic and other information for evolving an authentic chrono-cultural narrative for the eventual Report. A review paintstakingly gone through by the Editor revealed much evidentiary data, including precise working levels of important structures and their phases, besides information on the decline of the valley site of Vijayapuri and its disappearance from the historical horizon abruptly in early 4th century A.D. after so much of promise. The emerging Report has now made good these deficiencies.

The rich inscriptional materials from the excavations were also discussed with the Epigraphy Branch whose published authentic text and translations have however directly utilised, without any additional discussion, notwithstanding their variation with archaeological evidence from the excavations. The Editor thanks Dr. K.V.Ramesh, Director (Epigraphy), not only for his help, along with his able colleagues, in the Editor's task, but also for his having contributed an introductory note to the chapter of Epigraphical discoveries, besides supplying the set of photographs of the published inscripitons from Nāgārjunakonda.