Lord Buddha

A two-feet-long idol made of granite stone of Lord Buddha sitting in a Bhumispasha posture was unearthed in Kuarada village under Korei block of Jajpur district on Friday. The idol was found after some workers stumbled on the image while digging a pond. Later, the villagers stopped the digging work.

The stone image is a rare discovery in the state as Lord Buddha sits in a Bhumisparsha posture, said Buddhist researcher Dr Harish Chandra Prusty. Later, the villagers installed the image in the middle of the village and started worshipping it. Kuarada is situated near Kantikiarai village, where, two years back, a rare, gigantic Buddhist monastery was discovered in the river bed. According to Buddhist scholar Byabarta Ajay Das, the famous Buddhist sites of Lalitagiri, Ratnagari and Udayagiri are also situated in this area.

The recent unearthing of Buddha idols gives ample indication that the village and its nearby areas were parts of the Buddhist culture. But ironically, both the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the State Archeology department (SAD) have been paying little attention to the small unknown Buddhist sites for which many Buddha images and other archaeological findings are gathering dust. In many cases, antique lifters managed to pilfer the rare images from these areas. The unearthed Buddha image is not only historically significant but also reveals the artistic ex