Notes on the Amaravati Stupa

Amravati Stupa deals with the detailed description of the stones; stone excavated by Mr. Sewell, Stones at Bezzwada, addition notes on Amaravati Stupa and lastly Jaggayyapeta Stupa. This book has 253 description of stones which are excavated from Amaravati. The stones are not all numbered, nor are they all marked on the plan. To avoid further confusion the numbers on the stones are here followed, and a second series, marked B, is interspersed to designate others requiring notice. The recent excavations have converted the site of the tope into a large pit, roughly circular, about 75 yards in diameter, but with extensions outside the diameter, but with extensions outside the circumference at the four cardinal points which render the area somewhat of a square with very irregular sides. The removal of all the central portion of the debris of the tope for ever destroys the chances of getting any idea of its size or structural arrangement, but this was probably effected in the end of the last century. The stones were numbered from the south round by west and north, but may of them have been omitted in this enumeration, for what reason is hard to say. The numbers have been put on with tar and are daubed over prominent parts of the stones, sometimes across inscriptions, rending it impossible to get a fac-simile owing to the thickness of the pitch, and sometimes over delicate carving, and so effectually preventing the possibility of taking a clear photograph. The stones excavated by Mr. Sewell and left where he found them have been described among those enumerated on the survey plan. His numbers have mostly been washed off. But a large number of stones, evidently not in situ where he found them he judiciously removed to a small shed built on the north side of the excavation. Mr. Sewell’s accounts of these stones in his report are generally accurate, and therefore a fresh description of them.