Guntupalli Buddhist Caves

The Guntupalle or Guntupalli Group of Buddhist Monuments is located near Kamavarapukota, West Godavari district, in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India. It is around 40 km away from Eluru. The rock-cut part of the site has two Buddhist caves, a chaitya hall and a large group of stupas. The chaitya hall has a rare carved stone entrance replicating wooden architecture, a simpler version of that at the Lomas Rishi Cave. 

There are remains of structural buildings in brick and stone, including remains of two vihara made of brick, as well as excavated caves at two levels, including an unusual structural chaitya hall (that is, one built above ground). The core of this consists of the stone stupa with an enclosed path around it allowing ritual parikrama (circumambulation). They mostly date to 200-0 BCE, with some sculptures added later. The main building above ground is in brick, around a stone stupa, with over 30 smaller stupas on a terrace in front of it. There are ruins of two other buildings.

During excavation, three relic caskets were found. The caskets had many precious elements like gold, silver, crystal beads. The bronze image of Padmapani was found along with one of the caskets. The inscription on the casket was in the Devanagari script which indicates the year as from the 9th to 10th century CE.

For a Buddhist tourist to Andhra Pradesh, a visit to Guntupalli is highly recommended because it is widely acclaimed to be one of the most beautiful Buddhist sites in the region. This Buddhist settlement shines like a beacon of Buddhism thanks to a 6-feet tall marble idol of Lord Buddha. A rock cut circular temple and a Chaitya Griha are other iconic remains from 3rd Century B.C. The site is located atop a hill and has rock cut chaityas, votive stupas and viharas, several images of the Buddha for you to see. All these Buddhist treasures are believed to pre date even the world famous Ajanta and Ellora caves of Maharashtra. It is also believed that the great Buddhist Logician, Dignaga made this place his residence for quite some time.

In Guntupalli, during the 2nd – 3rd century A.D., the monks started excavating into the hill just like some concave sections later on with the improvement of the architecture and sculptures they started excavating deep into the hill by forming some group of chambers which are interconnected to each other. They have provided some basic requirements like drainage to drain out the water coming into the rooms from leakages from the hill, some bed like structure, niches, openings for doors and windows. These group houses are archaeologically called as monastery. Later with improvement in the construction materials the monks started using the clay bricks for the construction of brick chaitya, apsidal stupa, and votive tombs by making the bricks at the foot of the hill with available clay. They found that the bricks are weak when compared to stones and then for the permanency reason they started using the stones of the available rock near the construction site.