Meguti Hill Buddhist Chaitya and Vihara, Karnataka

Address

Meguti Hill Buddhist Chaitya and Vihara Lamp Aihole, Karnataka- 587124

Diety

Buddha

Introduction

Overlooking the Aihole Valley, on the slope of Meguti Hill, is a modest Buddhist Temple (Chaitya and Vihara) from the 5th century CE. It is a two-storey structure. A beautiful carving of the Buddha is still present on the ceiling of the upper floor. The Buddha’s right-hand shows vitarka mudra (gesture of teaching) and the left-hand is in dhyana-mudra (gesture of meditation). He is seated on a lotus, with a prabha behind his head and there is a three-layered chatra (royal canopy) above his head indicating a distinctive Mahayana style. On the doorframes to the inner sanctum are the depictions of various incidents from the life of the Buddha. Those include Buddha leaving Kapilavastu, the first turning of the wheel of Dharma at Sarnath, The Buddha taming the elephant Nalagiri, Devadatta trying to roll a stone over the Buddha, etc. There are also depictions from various jatakas (stories from his past lives), such as Cullahamsa Jataka, Aramadusaka Jataka, Valahassa Jataka, Surapana Jataka, Vessantara Jataka, etc. The main shrine rooms are now empty. A headless Buddha statue (3ft in height) lies abandoned just in front of the building. It is left in a careless condition without either moving it back to the building or to the museum. (The Buddhist and Jain monuments on Meguti Hill are in an ignored state unlike other archeological monuments of Aihole Valley.) Another Buddha statue from this place is now kept in the Aihole Museum