Place · Buddhist monastery · India
Bavikonda, Visakhapatnam
Also known as Bavikonda, Bavikonda relic stupa, Visakhapatnam
The Bavikonda Buddhist monastic complex at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh — a 3rd-century BCE to 2nd-century CE Hinayana Buddhist monastery on a hill 128 metres above the Bay of Bengal, 15 kilometres from Thotlakonda. The site was excavated by K.V. Soundara Rajan and the Andhra Pradesh Department of Archaeology from 1982. The excavation uncovered a maha-chaitya (containing fragmentary bone relics that may be from the Buddha himself, inside a crystal reliquary), 25 votive stupas, a monastic complex with 20+ cells, and a congregation hall. The relic-containing maha-chaitya is one of the few Buddhist sites outside the originally-named eight relic sites to yield reliquary material. The site documents the Satavahana-period Buddhist maritime network along the Andhra coast. ASI protection since 1982.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 17.862, 83.434
Connections (2)
- Site adjacencyThotlakonda, Visakhapatnam
Thotlakonda and Bavikonda are four kilometres apart on hills facing the Bay of Bengal outside Visakhapatnam, both with stupas, refectories and rock-cut cisterns, both yielding Satavahana and Roman coin. Together they show that the Andhra coast had a monastic frontage rather than isolated foundations, and that the monasteries lived off the sea trade passing below them.
- Site withinVisakhapatnam / Vizag
Bavikonda, Visakhapatnam sits inside Visakhapatnam / Vizag and forms one piece of its layered sacred, royal or civic landscape. The city carries this entry as one of the sites that make its urban fabric legible — a shrine, monument, institution or craft tradition specifically anchored at this location — and the city's broader history reads better when the stop is seen in its context rather than in isolation. The surrounding streets, markets and other heritage ensembles around it belong to the same single city.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Bavikonda”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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