Nagarjuna Konda
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Location
Nagarjunakonda, named after the Buddhist scholar and savant Acharya Nagarjuna, is situated in Macherla Mandal of the District Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. In ancient times, it was known as Vijayapuri ('City of Victory'), christened after Vijaya Satakarni, a later Satavahana ruler. Now, much of this ancient township is submerged under the third largest man made lake caused by the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam built across river Krishna.
Importance
Today, Nagarjunakonda is the meeting point of antiquity and modernity and of philosophic past and agro-industrial prosperity. About 1700 years ago, it was a great religious centre promoting Brahmanical and Buddhist faiths, molding the early phases of art and architecture affiliated with them. It was an extensive Buddhist establishment nourishing several sects of Buddhism that culminated in to the full-fledged Mahayana pantheon.
Pre and Proto Historical perspective
The fertile Krishna valley girdled on three sides by high hills of Nallamalai range offered its cradle to the nomadic prehistoric man. The continued sequence of stratified Early, Middle and Late Stone Age cultures on varied material and technique has earned a numero uno status for the site in the prehistoric archaeology of peninsular India.
The valley witnessed the rural life in the Neolithic period in around 3rd millennium BC with the people acquiring the technique and arts of cultivation, domestication of animals, potter's craft and carpentry. This phase was succeeded by the iron using Megalithic people in around 1500 BC...