Ambaran-Pamberwan the ancient Buddhist site in Akhnoor awaits attention
Jammu, May 22: Ambaran-Pamberwan the ancient Buddhist site in Akhnoor, is a place that has every potential to become a centre for religious tourism if included in tourism promotion activities.
Even as several announcements were made to improve infrastructure at the site but Ambaran is yet to find its right place in tourism directory of the state.
Ambaran has acquired a religious and tourism status and the place has become a source of attraction for the locals as well as the outsiders.
If promoted properly by the department of tourism the site is expected to invite special attention of the archeologists, historians along with tourists and visitors not from across the country but also from the world.
The site is very significant in view of the historical relevance which also breaks the myth that the Harrapan civilization was confined within the Indus Valley as this is considered as the last bastion of the Harappan Civilization as there has been no trace of any object that could show that Harappans moved any further beyond this town.
The significance of Ambaran can be gauged by the fact that the Dalai Lama has visited the site and the excavations carried out between 1991 and 2001 threw up relics of 5,000-year-old Harappan and pre-Harappan civilizations, says a report.
Excavations at Ambaran-Pamberwan sites have proved that the place was a prominent abode of Buddhism during the Kushan period and Gupta period. Apart from an ancient eight-spoke Stupa (a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, made of high quality baked bricks and surrounded by stone pathways, meditation cells and rooms), life sized Terracotta busts of Buddha and coins belonging to those periods were also excavated from the sites. The 14th Dalai Lama visited the place in August, 2012. Buddhist relics from the Pre-Kushan reign and silver caskets, gold and silver leaves, pearls, corals and three copper coins from the Gupta period are reported to be found. The location of the Stupas is such that it lies on the ancient routes from Pataliputra, now in present day Patna, Bihar in India to Taxila now in Punjab Province, Pakistan.
Among other find of historical importance that indicates the place inhabited by people pre-dominantly belonging to Hinduism is the green coloured Trimurti idol made up of a single stone at Ambarran Village.
The village Ambaran situated near Akhnoor on the outskirts of Jammu came to limelight because of the visit of Tibetan Spiritual Guru Dalai Lama who visited this famous archaeological site some years back. The village is famous for earlier yields of the Akhnoor Buddhist terracotta heads that now find their place in a number of museums throughout the world. The visit of his Holiness Dalai Lama to this ancient Buddhist site has further confirmed the grandeur of Ambaran’s rich historical and cultural importance and has opened gateways to the new world of fame and accreditation for its glorious past. His visit is a great turn in the history of Ambaran, as this is the only site which pre-dates all other Buddhist sites that have been discovered in the state.
The Ancient Buddhist site of Ambaran is located near Akhnoor, a few kilometers upstream from the town on the right bank of Chenab river. The site of Ambaran had come into prominence in 1930’s, when Charles Fabri, the English art historian and the then curator of the Lahore Museum (now in Pakistan) found a basket lying in a corner of the museum with no clue to its origin. In it were lying terracotta figurines, Buddha’s head, female torsos, draperies of life-size terracotta Buddha figures or monks. Then he decided to locate the origin of these terracottas. After painstaking investigations, including trips to various places like Baramulla, Srinagar, Harawan, in Kashmir and Akhnoor, in Jammu, Fabri finally traced the place from where his finds originated. This place was Pambarwan hamlet under the village Ambaran, situated at the point where the river Chenab emerges onto the plains. He called these relics: Akhnoor terracotta and explored the area and found fragments and parts of statues of Lord Buddha and female figures, draperies, jewellery, one beautiful and near-complete head of a woman, similar in style to heads found in the Lahore Museum. Today these sculptures, labeled as Akhnoor terracotta, are the star attraction of classical art of India and are housed in various national and international museums including Dogra art Museum Jammu.
In the year 2000 and 2001, to make the historic site of Ambaran ready for visit of tourists and general public, the ASI decided to undertake the scientific clearance of the site. But this led to unique find of an eight-spoke stupa base made up of fire baked bricks. The exteriors of the stupa were made of moulded and plain bricks. Its core was filled with pebbles and earth. This stupa was found to be associated with the Buddhist religious architecture developed by Kushanas between 1st to second centuries A.D. This chance find of a Kushan period stupa at Ambaran has not only taken back the date of the site to 2000 years from today, but also made it as the earliest recorded Buddhist site in the entire state.
Ambaran is a Buddhist monastery that was active for about 900 years between the second century BC and seventh century AD, a period belonging to the pre-Kushan, Kushan, and post-Kushan Gupta eras. It also underwent repeated repairs due to the havoc wrought by periodic flash floods of the Chenab River. The site of Ambaran is unique in the state due to the fact that the buildings speak of the continuous existence of the monastic complex through different stages of history and is considered as third of its kind in India with one found at Nagarjunakonda in Andhra Pradesh and the second at Sanghol in Punjab. The site seems to have been abandoned when it was washed away around 7th century A.D. due to flash floods and decline of Buddhism in the region. (Compiled from various sources)