Jinamanjari 1996 04 No 13

Author(s): Jinamanjari
Publisher: Canada Bramhi Jain Society Publication

Page 89

the search. Designed for use by scholars, researchers and the general public alike, this summary of the Vaddamanu finds is aimed at those with a particular interest in the diffusion of Jaina and Buddhist religious communities in South India between the third century B.C.E and fifth century C.E. For those unacquainted with the location of the site, Vaddamanu is situated in Andhra Pradesh along the banks of the River Krishna, thirty-four kilometres north-east of Guntur and ten kilometres south of the Buddhist site of Amaravati.
The text itself consists of twelve chapters which strategically integrate written text with maps, stratigraphy charts, floor plans of the structures (there are four successive periods of habitation at this site), photographic plates (black and white) and well-defined artifact illustrations. A modest bibliography is included as chapter thirteen.
With the introduction, co-authors Sastri, Kasturbai and Veerender guide the reader through the historical and geographical landscape of Vaddamanu and the surrounding region. This skillfully lays the essential foundation needed for the presentation of methodology, stratigraphic record, and the pragmatic strategies employed at the site in the second chapter. Chapters three, four, five, six and seven present the data of the "early historical cultures" and their chronological record. In an intelligible and uncomplicated unveiling of the material, the reader is introduced to locus identification using, among other criteria, building structures (stupas, viharas, etc.), cut-stone inscriptions (which contain Brahmi script datable between 300 B.C.E. and 200 C.E.), ceramic technologies (pottery typology), coins, and, of particular interest, inscribed potsherds (ostraca). Period I, for example, is demarcated by structures built of stone and baked brick and characterised by the "presence of megalithic black-and-red and black ware" which yielded a number of comparisons to the fourth century B.C.E. sites of Amaravati and Dharankikota. The inscribed potsherds found in the upper level of the period I stratigraphy
are
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