Qualla: Bojjannakonda

Bojjannakonda: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anandajoti, CC BY-SA 4.0. The village name gives away the secret. Sankaram -- a corruption of Sangharam, the old word for a Buddhist monastery -- sits quietly about a mile east of Anakapalli in Andhra Pradesh, surrounded by paddy fields. Two modest hillocks rise to the north: Bojjannakonda on the east and Lingalakonda on the west. They look like ordinary features of the coastal Andhra landscape until you climb them. Then the stupas appear -- dozens of them, monolithic and brick-built, crowding the rock-cut platforms like a congregation frozen in stone. The name Bojjannakonda itself is a worn-down echo of its original: Buddhuni Konda, the Hill of the Buddha.

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Image: Anandajoti | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bojjannakonda: Three Faiths on One Hill

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anandajoti, CC BY-SA 4.0. What makes Bojjannakonda rare among Indian Buddhist sites is the layering of history on a single hilltop. When Alexander Rea led excavations here in 1907, the team uncovered evidence of all three major phases of Buddhist tradition: Hinayana, Mahayana, and Vajrayana. That progress...

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Image: Anandajoti | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bojjannakonda: Carved Into the Rock

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anandajoti, CC BY-SA 4.0. Six rock-cut caves punctuate the hillside, several adorned with sculptured panels. The largest holds sixteen pillars -- five of them now broken -- encircling a monolithic stupa at its center. A pradakshina-patha, the ritual circumambulation path, wraps around the stupa so devotee...

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Image: Anandajoti | CC BY-SA 4.0

Bojjannakonda: Coins and Kingdoms

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adityamadhav83, CC BY-SA 3.0. The real timeline of Bojjannakonda emerged from the soil. Excavations yielded seals, terracotta inscribed tablets, terracotta beads and figurines, copper coins, and a single gold coin bearing the name of Samudragupta of the Gupta dynasty, who ruled Magadha from roughly 340 to 375...

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Image: Adityamadhav83 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Bojjannakonda: Silence and Revival

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Anandajoti, CC BY-SA 4.0. Buddhism flourished in this region from the 3rd century BCE through the 3rd century CE, then gradually faded as Hinduism reasserted itself across the subcontinent. The monasteries emptied. The stupas stood unvisited for centuries. Even the name changed -- Buddhuni Konda became Bo...

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Image: Anandajoti | CC BY-SA 4.0