JAJPUR BUDDHIST STUPA

JAJPUR BUDDHIST STUPA

WHY IN NEWS ?

• Recently the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) stumbled upon a 1,300 years old stupa.
• It was located right in the middle of a mining site in Odisha’s Jaj­pur district.
• Another smaller stupa has been completely destroyed due to mining at the site.
• The district is famous for Khondalite stones.
• These stones were supplied for the beautification project around the 12th century Shree Jagan­nath Temple in Puri.

ABOUT NEW FOUND STUPA :

• The stupa could be 4.5 ­metre tall and initial assessment showed that it may belong to the 7th or 8th century.
• The newly discovered stupa was possibly disfigured in an earlier period.
• A stone carving piece removed by ASI officials during their excavation of a 1,300-year-old Buddhist site at Parbhadi Sukhuapada in Jajpur district of Odisha.

KHONDALITE STONES :

• Khandolite mining site is at Parabhadi in Suk­huapada hamlet in Jajpur district.
• Khondalite stones were widely used in ancient temple complexes.
• Khondalite stones are proposed to be used wide­ly to maintain aesthetic va­lue of some projects.
• Projects include heritage security zone, the Jagannath Ballavpilgrim centre, Puri lake development project, the Atharnala heritage project and the Matha Develop­ment Initiative.
• The state government had launched Augmentation of Basic Amenities and Deve­lopment of Heritage and Architecture (ABADHA) scheme in three years to transform Puri into a world heritage city.
• Sukhuapada was the biggest of six Khondalite stone blocks reserved for the OMC.

MORE ABOUT THE NEWS :

• After discovery of the Buddhist stupa from the mining site, the ASI in­tervened and asked the Odisha government to stop mining.
• Local people and Budd­hist scholars had warned the State government against mining in the Suk­huapada hamlet as the site was part of the Lalitgiri Buddhist site.
• The State government must conduct heritage as­sessment of a site.

SYLLABUS : PRELIMS, ART AND CULTURE