The second volume of Nagarjunakonda Excavation Report, which is the outcome of a special project undertaken to unveil the extensive remains in the valley in 1954. As a result of this great event, a new approach to combat the total destruction of the cultural heritage was possible by transplanting the ruins. Within a span of six years more than hundred sites were unearthed ranging in dates from early stone age to the late medieval period. Nagarjunakonda came into prominence under the Ikshvaku rulers when structural activities and artistic pursuits reached their height. This present volume gives an account on the historical period relating to the chronological framework with details of religious and secular structural remains, inscriptions, coins besides various other items of daily use. After the decline of the Ikshvaku rulers, Nagarjunakonda witnessed a fall both in political glory and in artistic tradition, which regained its lost position during the Bahmanis, Vijayanagra and Gajapati Kings.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR K.V. Soundara Rajan
K.V. Soundara Rajan (b. 1952) who additionaol Director General, Archaeological Survey of India, needs no introduction to scholars and academics in art, archaeology and architecture, in India and outside. His contributions to Indian Culture have the mark of secular values, being related to not only Hinduism and its allied facets of Buddhism and Jainism but also to the creative art productions of Islam in architecture. Trained by Mortimer Wheeler and F.E. Zeuner in field archaeology and Prehistoric studies, in which career he has excavated several sites of varying nature in different parts of India, from the Harappan, through the Megalithic to Indo-Roman centres, it is his primary grounding in Sanskrit and its ancient legacy that made him a legitimatae and effective practitioner in interpretative thrusts in both archaeological and traditional studies in an integrative manner. He has a score of books and hundreds of research articles in his name and had, besides being an alumnus of Allahabad University, been the chairperson of several learned societies traveled in the Old world and the New, having lectured and studied their monuments and museums and is respected for his fluent exposition of our cultural heritage. His ‘Essence of Hinduism’ with its succedding Dictionary Volumes of Hindu usages, is perhaps the creation closest to his heart as the quintessential presentation of our cultural legacy. His abiding interests include also Classical music and the Stage.
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