Nagarjunakonda

Listen first. The boat engine fades, and the water of the Krishna laps against the jetty. A warm wind crosses the reservoir and carries the smell of wet stone and dry grass. Ahead of you, a low green hill rises from the water like the back of a resting animal. This is Nagarjunakonda, an island today. For most of its long life, though, it was a hilltop above a busy river valley.

The name means the Hill of Nagarjuna. It honours Acharya Nagarjuna, one of the most influential thinkers in Buddhist history. He is closely linked with the Madhyamaka school, often called the Middle Way philosophy. Tradition connects him with this region of the Krishna valley. Scholars still debate exactly where he lived and taught. So hold that link loosely, as a tradition rather than a proven fact. The connection is old, though, and it gave the hill its name.

What is certain is that a real city once stood in this valley. Its ancient name was Vijayapuri. Around the third and fourth centuries of the common era, it served as a capital of the Ikshvaku dynasty. The Ikshvakus were a royal family who ruled part of the eastern Deccan after the decline of the Satavahanas, an earlier and larger power. Under the Ikshvakus, the valley filled with palaces, temples, monasteries, bathing tanks and workshops.

Here is the first surprise. Almost nothing you will see stands where it was built. The original valley now lies under the water around you. In the 1950s and 1960s, India built the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam across the Krishna. This was one of the great irrigation projects of the young republic. The reservoir behind it would drown the ancient city completely.

Archaeologists knew the ruins were here long before the dam. The site was identified in the 1920s, and early excavations followed soon after. When the dam was approved, a race against rising water began. Teams from the Archaeological Survey of India excavated the valley across several years. They recorded dozens of sites — stupas, monasteries, shrines and houses. Then they did something remarkable. They dismantled key monuments, numbered the stones, and rebuilt them on higher ground.

So as you walk the island, think of it as a carefully assembled album. Some structures were moved to this hilltop. Others were rebuilt on the mainland shore nearby. Each one is a faithful reconstruction of something now resting under the reservoir. The original foundations still lie down there, in the silt, beneath the boats crossing above your head.

The Buddhist monuments show how important this valley was to the religion. Inscriptions found here record gifts from royal women of the Ikshvaku family. These women were major patrons of the monasteries, even when the kings themselves followed Brahmanical Hindu rites. That mix is worth pausing on. In one royal household, a king could perform Vedic sacrifices while his sisters and queens funded Buddhist stupas. The valley held both traditions side by side.

One of the most important structures was the Great Stupa, or Mahachaitya. A stupa is a solid, dome-shaped monument built to hold relics of the Buddha or a revered teacher. Pilgrims walked around it in a clockwise direction as an act of devotion. The inscriptions connected with it name a royal donor, and they give historians a clear look at the dynasty. Notice the brick construction of the reconstructed stupas. The bricks were laid in a pattern of radiating walls, like the spokes of a wheel, to keep the dome stable.

The second surprise involves the wider world. Inscriptions from the valley mention monks and monasteries linked with distant lands, including Sri Lanka. Buddhist scholars travelled here to study and live. This was not a quiet provincial town. It was a place on a network of learning that stretched across the Bay of Bengal. Standing on this small island, it is hard to imagine. But the valley once connected to ports, traders and monks from far beyond the Deccan.

The island museum holds the finest carvings recovered from the excavations. Look closely at the pale limestone panels. They show scenes from the life of the Buddha and from the Jataka tales, which are stories of his earlier lives. The figures are slender and full of movement. Dancers sway, elephants turn, crowds lean in to watch. This carving style is related to the work from Amaravati, another great Buddhist site in the lower Krishna valley. In many early panels, the Buddha himself is shown through symbols, such as an empty seat or a footprint.

The city was not only religious. Excavators found remains of a large open structure, often described as an amphitheatre or stadium, with stepped seating on its sides. Experts still discuss its exact purpose. It may have hosted performances, gatherings or debates. There were also bathing ghats along the river and a large tank linked with a royal horse sacrifice, a Vedic ritual that announced a king's power. Together these pieces show a capital with civic life, ceremony and faith all close together.

As you walk, let the physical setting do some of the work. The ground is dry and rocky, with scrub and low trees. The light here is bright and hard at midday, and the stone gets hot underfoot. From the higher points, the reservoir spreads out on every side, grey-blue and very still. The hills of the eastern Ghats rise on the horizon. Try to picture the river below you as a narrow stream, with fields and a walled city along its banks.

Before you leave, stand for a moment near the water's edge. Look out across the surface of the reservoir. Somewhere beneath it lie the streets, the house floors and the empty platforms of Vijayapuri. The stones around you were carried up here, one by one, so that they would not disappear. As your boat pulls away, watch the hill grow smaller behind you. It holds the last visible pieces of a city that is still there, only under water.