Juljul hills Buddhist Monastery- Jharkhand

Address

Juljul hills Buddhist Monastery- Bahoranpur, Hazaribagh district Jharkhand 825303

Diety

Buddha

Introduction

Buddhism, one of the major world religions with its origin in India, Added another piece of historical evidence to its 2,500-year-old existence. A structure belonging to the Buddhist culture was recently unearthed by the Archaeological Survey of India at the foothills of the Juljul hills in the Hazaribagh district of India’s eastern state of Jharkhand. The site is around 340 kilometers (210 miles) from Sarnath, a major pilgrimage site near Varanasi where the Buddha gave his first sermon.

Puranic Significance

The Archeological Survey of India had in 2020, identified three mounds, the excavation of the first mound, the discovery of a complete shrine and two subsidiary shrines, two meters (6.6 feet) below the surface. They started excavating the second mound in the last week of January,” “The site seems to be from around the 10th-century,” Mishra said. A team excavated three stone statues of Tara, a Buddhist savior-goddess with numerous forms, and five of the Buddha “A monastery-cum-shrine was discovered with three rooms. In the northwest corner of the structure, we found five sculptures of the Buddha in a seated position, and three sculptures of Tara, which indicates it might be the center of the Vajrayana sect of Buddhism,” Vajrayana is a form of Tantric Buddhism with roots in India and its neighboring countries, particularly Tibet. The other forms of Buddhism are Theravada and Mahayana. The statues of Tara were found in Varad Mudra (gesture of hands showing dispensing of boons) position, and the statues of Buddha were found in Bhumispara Mudra (gesture of hands showing five fingers of right hand towards the earth symbolizing Buddha’s enlightenment) position. “Two out of the three sculptures of Tara were broken,” said Mishra. This is a significant finding in terms of spread of Buddhism in Jharkhand. However, it is also a matter of research and further findings.