1,900-yr-old Buddhist Monastery
discovered in Gujarat
Ahmedabad,
Oct 11: Gujarat Archaeology Department has discovered a small Buddhist
monastery in Vadnagar town of North
Gujarat.
Talking to UNI, State archaeology department director
Dr
.Yadubirsingh Rawat today said the 1,900-yr-old monastery was built of bricks on
a plinth and had 12 chambers of different sizes, where the monks used to stay.
Its entrance was in northern direction. A small drain was found in south-west
corner of the monastery.
Dr Rawat said ''So far, more than 2,000 pieces of archaeological importance
have been found from Ghaskol Darwaja excavation site in Vadnagar, including
2,000-year-old house, several clay utensils, silver coins, beads, ornaments,
Roman style head sculpture, turbaned face clay plaque, votive tablet, head
sculpture, plaque sculpture depicting Buddha and parts of vessel on which
Buddhism related words are written in Brahmi script.'' He said ''The Buddhist
monastery probably belongs to second
to fourth century era. It was probably in use for 300
years. After two years of excavation, we can now confirm that this was a
Buddhist monastery.'' According to
Mr Rawat, Chinese traveller Hieun Tsang had
visited Vadnagar, which was known as Anandpur between 640 AD and 644 AD, and
had documented presence of 1,000 Buddhist monks and 10 Buddhist monasteries in
and around Vadnagar.
Decades ago, a sculpture of Bhagvan Buddha was found from Vadnagar, which was
then placed in Vadnagar museum for permanent exhibition.