Over a dozen terracotta statues of Lord Buddha excavated from the ancient Devni Mori site in north Gujarat, have been submerged in floodwaters since the night of Aug 26.
The statues, which are over 2,000 years old, were kept in the cellar along with other antiquities excavated from the Devni Mori site in 1963.
“In all these years, we have never seen floodwater entering our department building. This time, water from Bhukhi Nullah entered our cellar, which was completely inundated,” confirmed Professor Sushmita Sen, the head of the archaeology department. “We pumped out water from the cellar on Saturday, but it is yet to get clear.”
This is very unfortunate. The cellar had around 15 old terracotta statues of Lord Buddha which were excavated by Professor B Subbarao and his team from Devni Mori. It is a great loss,” said eminent archaeologist and retired professor V H Sonawane.
In the late 1950s, when the Gujarat government wanted to construct a dam on the Meshwo river, archaeologists from MS University protested against the submergence of a site in north Gujarat, drawing the ire of even the then chief minister.
But they continued spending nights in tents and kept guns to protect themselves from panthers until their mission was accomplished.
On Jan 14, 1963, the team of archaeologists from Vadodara, led by Professor Subbarao, Dr R N Mehta, and professor S N Choudhary, finally discovered a relic casket containing the bodily remains of ‘Dashabala’ (Lord Buddha). This discovery of the mortal remains of Buddha established Devni Mori as an important archaeological site overnight. It put Gujarat on the global Buddhist circuit map, making it one of the only five places across the globe that has mortal remains of Buddha.
According to teachers at the MSU’s archaeology department, it was for the first time that floodwaters entered the cellar of the building of the department founded by Subbarao in 1950 at the Faculty of Arts. Teachers are keeping their fingers crossed, hoping that the terracotta antiquities of Buddha survive the floodwaters after remaining inside the inundated cellar for so long. “Thankfully, the statues are placed on a platform inside the cellar. Hopefully, they would not have got damaged,” said a teacher.
“There are other antiquities as well, potteries, and animal bones which have been kept in plastic bags or containers. The extent of the damage will be known only after the cellar is clear of floodwater and is dried up,” he said.
The department keeps the relics of Lord Buddha under lock and key in a safe on the first floor of the building. The relic casket contains ashes of Lord Buddha which are lighter than a feather.
For decades, the department has been using the cellar to preserve the antiquities and the old records. Not just the antiquities, tents, kitchen utensils, tables, equipment, beds, and pottery motors that students and teachers from the department use during excavation camps are also inundated in the floodwater.
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