Place · Buddha sculpture · India
Karumadikkuttan, Alappuzha
Also known as Alappuzha, Karumadikkuttan, Karumadikkuttan Bodhisattva
The Karumadikkuttan 'Black Buddha' stone sculpture at Karumadi village in Alappuzha district, Kerala — a 10-century Pala-style sitting Buddha image found in a paddy field by farmers in 1930. The 1-metre black granite Buddha in meditation pose documents a surprising survival of Buddhist worship in Kerala long after the mainland Buddhist tradition had declined. The sculpture is one of the clearest evidence that Pala-period (8-12 century) Buddhism had maritime trade connections with the Chera coast of Kerala. The sculpture is on display at the Karumadikkuttan Mandapam, a small roadside shrine built by the Kerala government in 1965. The ASI protects the sculpture since 1965. The adjacent Karumadi Varanasi tank is a local pilgrimage site. The sculpture features in Kerala tourism as evidence of Buddhist Kerala.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 9.420, 76.390
Connections (2)
- Kerala BuddhistPattanam Archaeological Site
The Karumadikkuttan, a ninth or tenth-century granite Buddha found in an Alappuzha paddy field with part of its left side broken away, is one of very few survivals of the Buddhist phase of Kerala — a period attested in place-names, in the Manimekalai, and in a scatter of images, and otherwise almost erased. The Pattanam and Muziris trade world it belonged to is the context in which Buddhism reached this coast at all.
- Site withinAlappuzha
Karumadikkuttan, Alappuzha sits inside Alappuzha 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.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Karumadikkuttan”. Archaeological Survey of India and State Archaeology monument records, and the standard regional literature.
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