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134 EPIGRAPHIA INDICA
(VOL. XXVIII large-scalo spoliation of the hill for bricks, building material and road material in which, strange to say, tho P. W. D. took a leading part. The survey was commenced in 1943-44 and continued in 1946-47 and it may not be out of place here if such of the structures as were saved and antiquities as were salvaged are very briefly described in this article. It is of great interest that crystal reliquaries shaped like stūpas, with gold relics in them in the shape of flowers (svarnapushpas), were found in the mahāchaitya behind the apsical chaitya on the crown of the Salihundám hill (plate III-b, c).
The chaitya : (plate 1-c)-Though the chaitya on the top of the hill is actually in ruins, one can judge. from its remains that it stood to a considerable height, and being juxtaposed on the topmost and narrowest point of the hill should have been clearly visible from the sea-port of Kalingapatnam which is only three miles away from the hill (plate II-a, c). Evidently, Buddhist pilgrims and merchants came here to offer their tributes from the sea-side along the Vamsadhāra river. The chaitya, which is apsidal, still bears its old lime plaster (plate I-c) which glistens in the sun as though it was just finished off. Right in the centre was a votive stupa of lime-stone, the basement of which alone now remains, the rest having been pilfered, as I was told, ly treasurehunters and house-builders.
The mahachaitya : (plate 1-4, b, d; III-a)—Behind the apsidal chaitya lay the stúpa or the mahāchaitya, of complete brick-work, in the form of a wheel and with bricks laid flat on its surface as one can judge from the existing height of its ruins (plate I-b; III-a). A few pieces of a curvilinear moulding are all that remain to-day of a lower plinth that faced the mahāchaitya at its lowest part or base. Such pieces compare well in their architectural function with what, in the Amaravati inscriptions, are called 'abatamālā', a name applied to the lowermost and slightly projecting mouldings of the rail of the Amaravati stupa. This stupa appears to have been the most important one on the Salihundām hill, or shall we say in this part of the Kalinga, for, it not only departs from the general hub-and-spokes arrangement of the brick frame-work of the Andhra stūpa, though retaining its wheel-like outer shape, but also yielded 3 stone caskets and 3 crystal reliquaries. The 3 crystal reliquaries are shaped like stūpas and each was found in a stone karanda or casket (plate I-d, III-a). In the arrangement of the stone karandas, which in shape recall the three stone caskets found in the Bhattiprõlu stupa, in Repalli Taluk of the Guntur District, there is a remarkable deviation from the Andhra stupa. While at Bhattiprolu their juxtaposition was vertical and the three were found right in the centre at convenient inter-space, here at Salihundām they were arranged at equal distance from each other, in a horizontal row along the diameter of the mahāchaitya which, as we have already remarked was shaped like a wheel (plate III-a). The stone caskets were in two parts each, a receptacle and the lid (plate I-d). Two of them are rectangular in shape while the third is circular and bigger and was found right in the centre of the mahachaitya (plate III-a). Its receptacle-part was shaped like the drum of a stūpa, while its lid resembled the anda (dome) and harmikā (pavilion) parts of the stūpa. The central casket or karanda seems to suggest by its form that it was meant to resemble the mahāchaitya itself.
The contents of the caskets are of untold importance to the Buddhist world. While they are crystal reliquaries like those of the Bhattiprolu stūpa-three in number, one in each stone basket--they recall by their shape three different forms of the stupa that were known to the ancient architects of India. And for this reason they are described here briefly. The first crystal reliquary, which was found in one of the rectangular karandas (plate III-b, c) recalls the simple type of the stupa. It is spiroidal (not a hemispherical dome though that was what was meant) and consists of two parts, a big and all-assuming part and a small circular part or base which slips underneath the former so completely as to create the impression that the two are of one indivisible unit. But when these two parts thus united, are scanned from above, they reveal a slot of space in the body of the crystal in which rests a gold flower (svarna-pushpa) glittering like burnished gold, which
