It is tough. It is tough to track down Buddhist remains in the state. Most of the times, no one seems to know the exact location even if you give them the name.
I hired an ‘auto’ and told the guy he is going to be with me for the whole day and go where I ask him to go. I was going to look for Ambaran in Akhnoor, a place considered the norther-most border of Harappan civilization.
On leaving the Jammu city, on way to Akhnoor, the road is lined with these local temples.
The road is also lined with brickkiln.
The Buddhist monastic complex is on the right bank of river Chenab. I found trucks dumping construction waste all day long into the river.
The place itself has been “restored”.
I found the complex locked, with not a soul in sight. I watched the site from the fence.
The excavations at the site started around 1990 even though a lot of terracota figures ( 7th century A.D.) now known as “Akhnoor Buddhist terracotta heads with Greeco-Roman influence” had been found in Akhnoor around 1950s. The figures are closely related to figures found at Ushkur near Baramulla, Kashmir (to be visited).
The site is dated along 4 periods:
Period I: Pre-Kushan period (circa second first century B. C.)
Period II: Kushan period (circa first to third century B. C.)
Period III: Post-Kushan (Gupta) period (circa forth fifth century A. D.)
Period IV: Post Gupta period (circa sixth seventh century A. D.)
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| Mourners of the Sikh man who had died |
That was Ambaran, the oldest Buddhist site in entire Jammu and Kashmir.
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