Where the monks meditated

Here’s a link to a blog with beautiful pictures of Thotlakonda . Very atmospheric !

http://huqelberry.com/bavikonda-and-thotlakonda#!/

Buddhism-Thotlakonda

Today I’ve decided to look up Buddhism from every angle. For, after all, a portion of Vizag’s history does seem to be tied up with Buddhism. Thotlakonda, Pavuralakonda, Bavikonda….the list of kondas being discovered is increasing by the year.


I remember going to Thotlalkonda the first time in 2000. It really did look long-abandoned, ruined, and beautiful. Just a year or so later, I visited it again, this time with my parents and a friend from the Asian College of Journalism. Padmini Thorakumbura—a Sri Lankan Sihalese girl—was keen on visiting the Buddhist ruins in Vizag, as she thought they might be important to her religion. This time, the ruins were ruined. They had been converted into a tourist attraction. The road was lined with cut grass and garden flowers. The bricks had all been gathered and laid down as though a new colony of Buddhisht monks were to take up residence there any day. In a word, things looked ugly. But who am I to comment on what the Archeological department, in all its wisdom, considered the best course of action?

Erukamma - Hariti

Seeking Mahadevi: constructing the identities of the Hindu Great Goddess, a research paper by Tracy Pintchman is the piece I talked about in my last post.


I’m particularly fascinated by the conclusion Pintchman draws about the Erukamma cult being a continuation of the Buddhist practice of Hariti worship. Faint traces begin to emerge of how a Buddhist Vizag must have looked and felt.

The Erukamma temple is located in Dondaparty, Visakhapatnam, and Pintchman says Dondaparty was one of the many villages Vizag swallowed as it grew. The Erukamma cult is, therefore, basically a rural one.

The Erukamma story is quite similar to most stories related to Goddess worship. The woman Erukamma preyed on children, stealing them from locals and devouring them in a secret place on the village outskirts. One day an Erukula man (belonging to the caste that weaves baskets) found her eating a child she had recently stolen; he cut off her head. The people of the village panicked at the thought of her spirit taking revenge and tried to placate her by worshiping her. They diverted her malevolent powers to their benefit and now seek blessings, protection, and sons from her.

Now for the Hariti story. According to classical Chinese Buddhist Mahayana texts, Hariti was originally a yaksi who feasted on children. One day Buddha kidnapped one of her own five hundred children, to show her how it feels to lose a child. Hariti’s appetite for children soon cooled and she turned vegetarian, accepting offerings of rice from devotees. The parallels are obvious enough.

References:

Seeking Mahadevi: Constructing the Identities of the Hindu Great Goddess; Tracy Pintchman

Erukamma cult - Buddhist connections

I found a well-written piece on how the Erukamma cult (of Dondaparty, Visakhapatnam) is actually a much-modified continuation of the Buddhist Hariti cult. It represents a gradual, seamless blending of Hinduism and Buddhism in India.

This piece of information comes from a paper written by one Tracy Pintchman and could yield some nuggets. Will definitely follow and see what it has to offer.

Lars Fogelin

I've decided to go into Buddhism for a while. A must read seems to be "Archeology of Early Buddhism" by one Lars Fogelin. He's spent two years (2000-2002) doing a surface survey of the ruins of the buddhist monastry in Thotlakonda and seems to have written this book based on what he found out there.