The small but exceptionally well-preserved Nalanda Gedige temple from around 700 to 1000 AD is of particular cultural and historical appeal for many reasons. Firstly, it is the oldest building in Sri Lanka, which was built entirely from natural stone, i.e. without brick fillings. Secondly, it forms a combination of Buddhist and Hindu and Sinhalese and Tamil elements stylistically, although hardly any other Buddhist building in Sri Lanka shows such a clear similarity to classic South Indian temple architecture. Thirdly, the Nalanda Gedige is a testimony to non-orthodox varieties of Buddhism in the very center of the historical heartland of the ancient Sinhalese civilzation now known as „Cultural Triangle“. Bodhisattva statues were found, which are typical of Mahayana Buddhism, and above all, the only erotic representation at an ancient sanctuary in Sri Lanka can be seen at the temple walls of Nalanda Gedige, which suggests tantric influences. Finally, the Nalanda Gedige has recently become a kind of "Abu Simbel" of Sri Lanka, because because its original location was flooded by a reservoir project, it was relocated, brick by brick, to a new, higher platform.
HISTORY OF NALANDA GEDIGE
Sri Lanka's chronicles do not mention Nalanda until the 12th century. Then it was not designated as a monastery, but as a military camp in connection with Parakramabahu's campaigns, which he led against King Gajabahu in Polonnaruwa, when he himself was still king of the southwest. At times, Nalanda served as his headquarters for his military advances against Gajabahu, but also against his cousin Manabharana in southern Rohana. Shortly before his coronation, Parakramabahu had a fortress built in Nalanda (as the British later also did due to the strategic importance). Sometimes the construction of the temple is only dated to the Polonnaruwa period or shortly before that: to the time of occupation by the South Indian Cholas. At first glance, this is also indicated by the unmistakable Hindu basic features of the architecture of the Nalanda Gedige, which can be found similarly in the Hindu temples of the 11th to 13th centuries in Polonaruwa, as well as the exclusive use of rubble stone. But on closer inspection, the Hindu Devales of Polonnaruwa are stylistically clearly Chola buildings, e.g. with a dome called a stupika at the top, while the Nalanda Gedige has one of the older roof shapes of the classic Pallava architecture of the 7th century. Due to the obvious Pallava influence most archaeologists date Nalanda Gedige to the late Anuradhapura period.
In addition to the stylistic models from the South Indian Pallava period, the only inscription stone that was found in the excavation area speaks in favor of dating the Nalanda Gedige to the late Anuradhapura period. Its font can be dated paleographically to the 9th or 10th century. Although only part of the inscription can be deciphered and the ancient name of the monastery is no longer legible, the content is also a typical dedicatory inscription of the late Anuradhapura period, in that it establishes a code of rules for monastic life: No criminals are allowed to be accepted into the monastery; consensus among the monks must be ensured; immoral workers should be fired. The inscription covers a square area 28 cm wide and is flanked by the typical symbols of such dedications, namely crescent, fan, dog and crow. The inscription stone is now placed on a brick base near where it was found.
The Nalanda Gedige achieved a certain level of fame in the 1970s. In 1970, the Mahaweli Scheme and other new water storage and irrigation projects began on a large scale, laying a new network of dams and canals across the center and east of the island to open up new agricultural land. The projects also included the expansion of the Bowatenne tank in Nalanda, which began in 1975. As a result, the original location of the temple was flooded. In 1977, the archaeologists decided to carry out a rescue operation based on the model of Nagarjunikonda in South India and, with the help of engineers and volunteers, dismantled the Nalanda Gedige into its individual stones, which were then stored for several years. The foundation was also excavated and examined; it may have come from a previous building. In 1980, the reconstruction of the Nalanda Gedige began on a specially created island in the reservoir near the original location. The work was difficult because stones that were found next to the buildings had to be re-incorporated, but above all because it turned out that the first restoration by Bell was defective, so corrections now had to be made. The result of the extraordinary care is that the Nalanda Gedige was rebuilt more completely than it had previously been found and reconstructed by Bell. Except for the roof of the Mandapa Hall, the building is fully intact today. Filling with concrete was only necessary at a few places for whom the original stones could not be rediscovered, especially in the roof area of the temple tower. Because of this rescue operation, Nalanda likes to bear the title "Abu Simbel of Sri Lanka", although one of more modest dimensions. What was important here was not the amount of technical effort, but only the scientific and technical precision. Over 10,000 original stones found their place in the three-dimensional puzzle. Only 500 stones could not be assigned; they are now located in front of the buildinf and on the access causeway to the island.
ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURAL ART OF NALANA GEDIGE
Visitors enter this dam through an access gate that may have once belonged to another building that no longer survives. Under shady Kohombo trees (Azadirachta indica), the causeway then leads along numerous excavation finds, which are mainly stone columns and sculpted blocks. The islet, on which the Nalanda Gedige and a smaller stupa next to it stand, forms a square terrace surrounded by a wall. This corresponds to the constellation at the original site, where the walled terrace with temple and stupa was also about one and a half meters higher than the surrounding area. Such a raised platform for the central ceremonial buildings of a monastery is typical of the late Anuradhapura period. The entrances of both buildings, temple and stupa, face east. Accordingly, the east side of the terrace originally had access, probably with steps. Today, however, the causeway gives access from the back. The said terrace wall has drains and still shows traces of gargoyles in some places.
The stupa stands on its own walled square terrace 1.2 m high and 24 m wide. The small ans slightly flattened stupa probably dates from the same period as the Gedige, although Bell thought it was younger. The stupa had been broken into by marauding treasure hunters and was seriously damaged. Local residents restored it in a makeshift manner in the mid-19th century. Only foundations had remained of the characteristic brick dome of a stupa when Nalanda was later excavated. Today's stupa dome is made of new bricks.
The Nalanda Gedige was built from the crystalline limestone of the surrounding area. You enter the temple via an outside staircase, which probably originally had its own small roof. The entrance area covers a floor area of 4.10m by 2.70m (13.5 feet by 9 feet). Three wide steps lead up to it. In front of them lies an unadorned moonstone. You can still see the unrolled tongues of these sea monsters on the Makara balustrades (Kowarakgalas). The ensemble of this staircase itself is a simple variant of the classic Anuradhapura temple staircases. However, the Nalanda Gedige differs slightly from the typical image house (pilimage) of Sri Lanka in one respect: The gate building almost appears to be a small building of its own in front of the hall, instead of being integrated into its front wall. And this is a feature of Hindu temple architecture in India, in which the main halls often received smaller vestibules, (sometimes even several of them, in a progressive arrangement).
What is particularly typical for Hindu temples is the combination of Sikhara tower and a wider Mandapa hall in front of it. The Mandapa hall served for the rituals of drummers and attendees,, whereas only priests had access to the main shrine below the higher temple tower (Sikhara). The Buddhist art of Sri Lanka's image houses (temples for statues) had long since adopted this double-structure, so that the ensemble of the large vestibule and the rear statue room had already become authentically Buddhist temple architecture when the Nalanda Gedige was created. In particular, the design of the Mandapa Hall itself is more reminiscent of other buildings in Sri Lanka than of the Indian models.
And yet, due to at least three features, the Nalanda Gedige appears much more similar to the said Hindu paragons of India than to the contemporary Buddhist image houses of Sri Lanka. Firstly, the mandapa and the main shrine do not form a coherent overall composition, but are almost two separate buildings one behind the other. Secondly, this impression is reinforced by the fact that both rooms had their own roof. That of the mandapa has not survived, but it must have been wide, while the roof over the statue room forms a tower-like Sikhara, as in Indian temple art. Thirdly, this Sikhara itself is the structure that bears the largest resemblance to the Indian temple roofs. Furthermore, the possibility of circumabulating this Sikhara on a shared platform of Mandapa and Sikhara also corresponds Indian temple architecture.
The Mandapa Hall covers a floor area of approximately 9m by 6m (30 feet by 20 feet). The walls of the mandapa are more than a meter thick. Today they still reach a height of 1.50 m (5 feet).
The entrance to the mandapa is a well-preserved stone gate behind the aforementioned staircase. Its posts have distinctive fluting. The threshold shows three seated figures of dwarves with hands on their knees, separated from each other by distinctive pilasters.
The architrave depicts a Gajalakhshmi, the goddess of prosperity sprinkled with water by elephants, an ancient symbol of the birth of the Buddha. All of these motifs are familiar from Anuradhapura art and can be considered typically Buddhist. Nevertheless, there are small Hindu details, for example the shape of the door and window jambs is more Tamil in style. Another detail from Hindu art later became quite popular in Polonnaruwa Buddhist art. The bathed Lakshmi is framed by so-called pasadas. Pasada - or Prasada in Sanskrit - actually means palace, but the term has become one of the many names for temples. Reliefs of Pasadas are a typical decoration of the Pallava temples of South India and their successors. In a sense, they represent the entire building in a reduced size on its walls, and some of these relief pasadas have mini pasadas on their walls as relief decoration, so that the self-reference of the temple decoration to the temple as a whole is repeated. It is interesting to see this Hindu motif appear in an otherwise entirely Buddhist decorative concept.
Inside, the Mandapa Hall is divided by two rows of eight massive pillars each, and the walls are decorated with 16 pilasters. Although mandapas originally come from Hindu art, by the time the Nalanda Gedige was built they had long been adopted into the Buddhist art of Sri Lanka's image houses. The mandapa of the Nalanda Gedige nevertheless resembles these Buddhist pilimages of the Anuradhapura period little more than the south Indian mandapa halls.
The pillars have a square base 62cm (24 inches) wide and a square shaft 37cm (15 inches) wide. From a third of the height they are octagonal, and at the top they are square again. This alternation of square-octagonal-square can already be found in the beginnings of Pallava architecture around 600 AD in southern India. The pillars in total are 2.13 m (7 feet) tall. Below the capital they have a square band decorated with highly abstract lotus flowers. These decorations, called "chaitya-kavata", are slightly different on each pillar.
The Mandapa hall and the cult room in the Sikhara are connected by a short corridor with steps. Next to this small staircase two torsos of Buddhas and the feet of a third figure were found. While the mandapa hall occupies the full width of the Nalanda Gedige, the gate tower above the sanctum is narrower. But it stands on the same platform called Maluva, which continues to measure the full width of the mandapa. As mentiones, this layout provides an circumabulatory around the Sikhara tower on the same terrace, as is also typical for Hindu temples. This terrace is bordered on the outside by a low wall, called a prakara. In Indian Hindu temples, such a wall surrounds the sanctuary a little more spaciously, there it also runs around the mandapa vestibule at some distance, thus creating a courtyard in the middle of which is the group of buildings of the temple. In Nalanda, the mentioned outer wall of the entire terrace (on which, in addition to the Gedige, there is also the stupa) corresponds more closely to this South Indian prakara. The actual temple wall of the Gedige is then located on the same terrace as the Mandapa Hall and the Sikhara Tower. The entrance to the Sikhara interior is a beautifully decorated gate measuring more than 2 m in height (7 feet). The lintel shows alternating reliefs of seated Buddhas and Pasadas.
The Sikhara covers an area of approximately 10 m by 9 m (33 feet by 30 feet), but is measures only 3.30 m by 2.25 m (11 feet by 7.5 feet) inside. This means that the Sikhara walls are also several meters thick. The walls are unadorned on the inside, as is usual with the cult niches of the holy of holies in Hindu temples. In Hindu architecture, such interior shrines are called "Garbhagriha", literally „womb“ or „uterus“. What is also characteristic of these garbhagrihas is their lack of windows. The internal support beams for the roof are exactly of the same design as those of Pallava architecture.
The temple tower of Nalanda Gedige reaches a height of 9 m )30 feet). It’s the only building from the Anuradhapura period whose roof structure has been preserved. The superstructure alone is 5 m high (16 feet). Pilasters with capitals loosen up the wall surfaces. The main structuring element are three cornices, which visually simulate three floors. These cornice bands are richly decorated with so-called kudus.
Kudus are niches or false windows, usually in a horseshoe-shaped frame. Like the Pasadas, they are typical decorative forms of South Indian Hindu temples at least since the Pallava period. The kudu niches are decorated with grimacing heads. These ghostly faces can also be found in the kudus of some Pallava buildings and, even more elaborately, in the Pandya Temple of Kalugumalai south of Madurai, which was built around 800 AD. The motif of the grimaces in the false windows (kudu) has been exported even further: one can find a Sikhara very similar to that of Nalanda, only with a lot more attics and ghostly faces, on the Dieng Plateau in Java. The Bhima-Chandi there also dates from around 800 AD.
Since the Pallavas, a typical element of Hindu temple towers has been the tiered construction of several attic floors on top of each other, which gradually become narrower at the top, so that the overall contour of the Sikhara tower shows the shape of a very steep, pointed step pyramid. The structure using horizontal cornice strips is the distinguishing feature of the Dravidian architecture of South India, in contrast to the North Indian temple towers, that are sculpted using convex vertical lines, such as in Khajuraho. The mentioned temples on the Javanese Djeng Plateau adopted the South Indian form, as did the Chandis of Tapsaksiring in Bali. Furthermore, the Khmer temple towers, which were also built around the 8th century, are based on the South Indian style of tiered structure, though integrating North Indian convex lines, too.
The upper end of the Sikhara temple tower is formed by a barrel roof with a base area of 5.50 m by 3.20 m (18 feet by 10.5 feet) and a crown height of 3.50 m (11.5 feet). Again, this roof edge clearly has its origins in the architecture of the Pallavas, who experimented with different types of roofs before the round stupika top and the barrel vault became their preferred roof constructions. This "elephant back" or "boat hull" shape of roof is called the Vesara type, sometimes also named Sala-Sikhara.
The Vesara roof probably originally had reliefs of the directional deities on all four sides. Only a relief on the south side has been preserved or restored. It represents the god Kubera, he is probably placed incorrectly here, because Kubera actually protects the north direction. Kubera, god of wealth, is not a deity usually found in Hindu temples; he is never a motif in Pallava art, but he is one of the typical divine figures of Buddhism, especially in Sri Lankan art.
Here at Nalanda Gedige, Kubera sits casually on a lotus pedestal in the so-called Lalitasana posture, the literal translation of which is "beautiful seat." With one leg dangling and one pulled up, the god makes himself comfortable under an umbrella (chattra), framed by six pilaster capitals. The right hand, holding a palm frond, lies on his full belly, which is a symbol of prosperity.
The frame of this gable arch, in which Kubera sits, again shows the horseshoe shape. In a sense, it is a giant kudu window. The richly decorated frame ends at the top with the motif of the Kirthi Mukha grimace, which is also typical of Sinhalese temples. The eyes, nose and tusks of the Kirthi Mukha can still be clearly seen. There is also a triangular capstone above it.
Today, inside the Sikhara there is a classic Sinhalese Buddha statue with the Ashisha mudra hand position for worship - Nalanda Gedige is still a shrine. However, this is not the original location of the statue. A deeply sculpted stone tablet depicting a Bodhisattva, probably Avalokiteschwara, was found here. Because of the niche-like relief area, the restorers initially mistook it for a guardian figure and therefore placed the stele at the entrance. The error has now been corrected. The Bodhisattva demonstrates the Sambhanga posture with a flower in his hand. His right hand hangs downwards in Varada Mudra, reaching down to a figure kneeling next to the Bodhisattva who is worshiping him. Another such adolescent kneels to the Bodhisattva's left. Above the main niche with the Bodhisattva there are three smaller, heavily weathered niches carved into it; in the middle niche there was a seated Buddha in the Dhyani posture; in the side niches there are two accompanying figures. The probable interpretation of the overall composition of the relief is that this Bodhisattva represents Avalokiteschwara in his form as lotus-bearing Padmapani, over which his heavenly origin rises, the Buddha Amithabha.
Anyway, the sculpture is clearly Mahayana Buddhist and thus indicates the non-orthodox character of the Nalanda Gedige. It is not clear whether the Nalanda Temple was open to Theravada, Mahayana, and Hinduism at the same time, or whether the different religious forms perhaps dominated the site at different times.
A seated Hinfu-figure depicting a four-armed Ganesha was found in Nalanda. However, this does not have to be an indication that the Gedige was used as a Hindu temple, rather the Ganesha could have originally been located in a non-preserved outbuilding, just as it is still common practice in many monasteries today to set up small shrines of Hindu deities for the lay followers on the edge of the monastery grounds.
Another interesting find is a Yantragala. This is a stone with many carved niches for storing relics, which is why it is called a lattice stone. A Yantragala was originally located horizontally on the floor of the reliquary chamber of a stupa. Yantragalas are found in large quantities throughout ancient monastic compounds. The reliquary stone of Nalanda is special in that the niches are spread over two levels, namely higher at the edge of the Yantragala, but lower in the middle.
The most famous sculptural image of Nalanda is on the southern wall of the Gedige. It is the only ancient relief in Sri Lanka depicting an erotic scene. „Erotic“ is an understatement, because the sexuality is not playfully hinted at. It’s depicted extremely drastically. One figure is penetrated from behind by a second figure, who in turn is penetrated from behind by a third figure. Probably the first figure is a woman, and the other two are men. Then a heterosexual and a homosexual act would be depicted at the same time. This is indeed very surprising for the otherwise chaste Buddhist art of Sri Lanka. It is true that in Hindu temples in India, especially in Khajuraho (around 1000 AD) and also at the Sun Temple of Konarak in Orissa (13th century), much more hearty sexual motifs can be seen in far greater numbers. However, drastic erotic images are anything but the norm in Indian temple decoration. In South India, erotic depictions are limited to mere allusions. And Theravada Buddhist art is traditionally even more reserved on this topic. There is only one example of Buddhist buildings in India comparable to the Nalanda Gedige, namely on a pillar at the entrance gate of an image house, which, like the Nalanda Gedige, dates from the second half of the first millennium. Due to its unusual nature, the sexual motif at Nalanda Gedige is associated with the emergence of a special variant of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Tantrism.
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