>Tom.Reding at 17:56, 17 March 2021

2021-03-17T17:56:56Z

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{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2018}}
{{Use Indian English|date=September 2018}}
{{Infobox settlement
| name = Lauria Nandangarth
| native_name =
| native_name_lang =
| other_name =
| nickname =
| settlement_type = City/town
| image_skyline = Lauria Nandangarh pillar of Ashoka side view.jpg
| image_alt =
| image_caption = The [[Pillars of Ashoka|Pillar of Ashoka]] at Lauria Nandangarh. Another recent photograph [http://np.geoview.info/asokan_pillar_at_lauria_nandangarh,82575342p here].
| pushpin_map = India#India Bihar
| pushpin_relief = yes
| pushpin_label_position = bottom
| pushpin_map_alt =
| pushpin_map_caption = Location in Bihar, India
| coordinates = {{coord|26|59|54.52|N|84|24|30.52|E|display=inline,title}}
| subdivision_type = Country
| subdivision_name = {{flag|India}}
| subdivision_type1 = [[States and territories of India|State]]
| subdivision_name1 = [[Bihar]]
| subdivision_type2 = [[List of districts of India|District]]
| subdivision_name2 = [[West Champaran district|West Champaran]]
| established_title = 
| established_date =
| founder =
| named_for =
| government_type =
| governing_body =
| unit_pref = Metric
| area_footnotes =
| area_rank =
| area_total_km2 =
| elevation_footnotes =
| elevation_m =
| population_total =
| population_as_of =
| population_rank =
| population_density_km2 = auto
| population_demonym =
| population_footnotes =
| demographics_type1 = Languages
| demographics1_title1 = Official
| demographics1_info1 = [[Maithili language|Bhojpuri]], [[Hindi language|Hindi]]
| timezone1 = [[Indian Standard Time|IST]]
| utc_offset1 = +5:30
| postal_code_type = [[Postal Index Number|PIN]]
| postal_code = 845453
| registration_plate =
| blank1_name_sec1 = Nearest city
| blank1_info_sec1 = Bettiah
| blank2_name_sec1 = [[Lok Sabha]] constituency
| blank2_info_sec1 = Valmikinagar
| blank3_name_sec1 = [[Vidhan Sabha]] constituency
| blank3_info_sec1 = Lauriya Yogapatti
| website =
| footnotes =
}}
[[File:Lauria Nandangarh lion.jpg|thumb|Close-up of the [[Capital (architecture)|Capital]] of the Lauria Nandangarh pillar (jaws of the lion broken).]]
'''Lauria Nandangarh''', also '''Lauriya Navandgarh''', is a city or town about 14 km from Narkatiaganj (or Shikarpur) and 28 km from [[Bettiah]] in [[West Champaran district]] of [[Bihar]] state in northern [[India]].<ref name="ASI"/> It is situated near the banks of the [[Burhi Gandak River]]. The village draws its name from a pillar (laur) of Ashoka standing there and the stupa mound Nandangarh (variant Nanadgarh) about 2 km south-west of the pillar. Lauriya Nandangarh is a historical site located in West Champaran district of Bihar.<ref name="ASI"/> Remains of Mauryan period have been found here.<ref name="ASI"/>

== History & Archaeological Excavations==
Lauriya has 15 [[Stupa]] mounds in three rows, each row upwards of 600 m; the first row begins near the pillar and goes E to W, while the other two are at right angles to it and parallel to each other.<ref name="ASI">{{cite web
|url=http://asi.nic.in/asi_exca_imp_bihar.asp
|title=Archaeological Survey Of India; Excavations - Important - Bihar
|publisher=Archaeological Survey of India
|access-date=2011-01-01
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161208173144/http://asi.nic.in/asi_exca_imp_bihar.asp
|archive-date=8 December 2016
|url-status=dead
}}</ref>

[[Alexander Cunningham]] partially excavated one of them in 1862 and found a [[retaining wall]] of brick (size 51 X 20 cm).<ref name="ASI"/> A few years later [[Henry Bailey Wade Garrick]] excavated several mounds with indifferent results. In 1905 [[T. Block]] excavated four mounds, two in each of the N to S rows.<ref name="ASI"/> In two of them, he found at the center of each, at a depth of "1.8 m to 3.6 m" (probably meaning 1.8 m in one and 3.6 m in the other) a gold leaf with a female figurine standing in frontal pose and a small deposit of burnt human bones mixed with charcoal.<ref name="ASI"/> The core of the mounds was, according to him, built of layers of yellow clay, a few centimeters in thickness, with grass leaves laid between.<ref name="ASI"/> Further down in one of them he found the stump of a tree.<ref name="ASI"/> His conclusions were that the earthen barrows had some connection with the funeral rites of the people who erected them, and he found an explanation of the phenomena encountered by him in the rites of cremation and post-cremation prescribed in the [[Vedas]]. On the basis of this hypothesis he identified the gold female figurine as the earth goddess [[Prithvi]] and ascribed the mounds to a pre-Mauryan age. After him the mounds came to be known loosely as "[[Vedic]] burial mounds". The locals call these mounds [[Bhisa]], a word also recorded by [[Alexander Cunningham|Cunningham]].<ref>{{cite book
|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wnYIAAAAQAAJ&oe=UTF-8|title=Report of Tours in North and South Bihar in 1880-81|publisher=Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing|access-date=2007-05-31}}</ref> Some believe that the 26-metre-high ancient brick sepulchral [[mound]] is the stupa where the ashes of Lord [[Gautama Buddha|Buddha]] were enshrined.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.indiaetravel.com/bihar/#lauria|title=Lauria NandanGarh'|access-date=2006-09-09}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Prasad|first1=Dr Rajendra|title=Satyagraha In Champaran|date=1928|publisher=Prabhat Prakashan|isbn=9788184301748|page=20|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3aAwBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA20|language=en}}</ref>

In 1935-36, archaeologist [[Nani Gopal Majumdar]] re-examined the four mounds with important results.<ref name="ASI"/> He found that all of them were earthen burial memorials with burnt brick revetments, two being faced with a brick lining in a double tier, so that there was no justification of regarding them as mere earthen barrows.<ref name="ASI"/> He also pointed out that the golden leaves found by Block had their exact replica in the [[Stupa]] at [[Piprahwa]] which is definitely a Buddhist [[Stupa]] of 300 B.C. or earlier. The respective Lauriya [[Stupas]] might be of a comparable date and there is nothing to connect them with [[Vedic]] burial rites. The layers of yellow clay which had a share in the building up of the [[Vedic]] theory of Block, are according to observations of archaeologist [[Amalananda Ghosh]], nothing but mud bricks, husk and straw being a common ingredient in ancient brick.

[[File:Lauria Nandangarh pillar of Ashoka.jpg|thumb|upright=0.5|left|Frontal view of the pillar.]]
Excavation of the Nandangarh site was started by Majumdar in 1935 and continued by Ghosh until 1939.<ref name="ASI"/> Before excavation the mound had a height of 25 m and a circumference of about 460 m, standing at the East of a brick fortification about 1.6 km in perimeter and roughly oval of plan, no doubt enclosing a habitation area, perhaps the headquarters of a clan that was responsible for the erection of the Lauriya [[Stupas]]. Surface finds indicate that it was inhabited in [[Shunga Empire|Shunga]] (if not earlier) and [[Kushans]] times.<ref name="ASI"/>

On excavation, Nandangarh turned out to be stupendous [[Stupa]] with a [[polygonal]] or cruciform base;<ref name="ASI"/><ref name="Kaushik">{{cite book|last1=Kaushik|first1=Garima|title=Women and Monastic Buddhism in Early South Asia: Rediscovering the Invisible Believers|date=2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=9781317329398|page=27|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YoCPCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA27|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Pande|first1=Govind Chandra|title=India's Interaction with Southeast Asia|date=2006|publisher=Project of History of Indian Science, Philosophy, and Culture|isbn=9788187586241|page=419|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dnVuAAAAMAAJ|language=en}}</ref> with its missing dome which must have been proportionately tall, the [[Stupa]] must have been one of the highest in India.<ref>{{cite book
|url=https://books.google.com/books/about/An_Encyclopaedia_of_Indian_Archaeology.html?id=Wba-EZhZcfgC
|title=An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology
|publisher=BRILL
|date=1990
|access-date=2012-12-28
}}</ref>

The walls of the four [[cardinal directions]] at the base (only the W ones and partly the S ones were excavated) are each 32 m long and the wall between each has a zigzag course with 14 re-entrant and 13 outer angles. The walls flanking the first and second terraces following the polygonal plan of the base; those pertaining to the upper terraces were circular. An extensive later restoration hid the four upper walls and provided new circular ones; the polygonal plan of the walls of the base and the first terrace were left unaltered. The top of each terrace served as a pradakshina-path (South facing pathway), though no staircase to reach the top was found in the excavated portion.

The core of the stupa consists of a filling of earth with a large number of animal and human figurines in the [[Shunga Empire|Shunga]] and [[Kushana]] idiom, a few punch marked coins and cast copper coins, terracotta sealing of the 2nd and 1st century B.C. and iron objects.<ref name="ASI"/> As the earth was brought from outside, obviously from a part of the habitation area to the south of the stupa where the resultant pond is still visible, the objects are understandably not stratified.

In a shaft dug into center of the mound an undisturbed filling was found at a depth of 4.3 m the remains of a brick altar 1 m high; it has previously been truncated, perhaps by one of the explorers of the 19th and the early 20th centuries. Further down at a depth of 4.6 m from the bottom of the altar the top of an intact, miniature stupa was found, complete with a surmounting square umbrella.<ref name="ASI"/> This stupa is 3.6 m high and polygonal on plan.<ref name="ASI"/> An examination of its interior yielded nothing meaningful, but beside there lay a tiny copper vessel with a lid fastened to it by a wire. Inside the vessel was a long strip of the birch leaf manuscript, which having been squeezed into it was so fragile that it was impossible to spread it out and examine thoroughly without damaging it. The bits that could be extricated showed Buddhist text (probably the Pratītyasamutpāda since the word nirodha could be read a few times) written in characters of the 4th century A.D. No excavations were made at a further depth.<ref name="ASI"/>

==Pillar of Ashoka==
{{See also|Pillars of Ashoka}}
Less than half a kilometer from the village and 2 km from the mound, stands the famous pillar of [[Ashoka]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Vishnu|first1=Asha|title=Material Life of Northern India: Based on an Archaeological Study, 3rd Century B.C. to 1st Century B.C.|date=1993|publisher=Mittal Publications|isbn=9788170994107|page=175|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zaJ5oyrqBakC&pg=PA175|language=en}}</ref> It is a single block of polished [[sandstone]] over 32 feet (10 m) high. The top is bell shaped with a circular [[abacus]] ornamented with [[Brāhmī script|Brahmi]] geese supporting the statue of a lion.<ref>{{cite web
|url=http://www.india9.com/i9show/15090.htm
|title=Lauria Nandangarh
|access-date=2006-09-09
}}</ref>

The pillar is inscribed with the [[edicts of Ashoka]] in clear and beautifully cut characters.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Ray|first1=Niharranjan|title=Maurya and Post-Maurya Art: A Study in Social and Formal Contrasts|date=1975|publisher=Indian Council of Historical Research|page=19|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sRlQAAAAMAAJ|language=en}}</ref> The lion has been chipped in the mouth and the column bears the mark of time just below the top which has itself been slightly dislodged. Signs of vandalism over the years are clearly visible.
<gallery>
File:Lauriya-Nandangarh_pillar.jpg|Photographed in 1911.
Close view of Lauriya Nandangarh Ashoka Pillar.jpg|Close view of the inscriptions.
Ashoka pillar lauriya-navandgarh1.png|Edicts.
Ashoka pillar lauriya-navandgarh2.png|Edicts.
Lauriya Nandangarh Ashoka Pillar capital.jpg|Frontal close-up of the lion (jaws broken). The geese of the abacus are clearly visible.
</gallery>

== See also ==
* [[Mauryan art]]
* [[Pillars of Ashoka]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}
{{Edicts of Ashoka}}
{{Tirhut Division topics}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Villages in West Champaran district]]
[[Category:Mauryan art]]
[[Category:Edicts of Ashoka]]

Lauria Nandangarh - Revision history

>Tom.Reding at 17:56, 17 March 2021