INDIA, SOUTH
Evidence for the history of Buddhism at the south-
ernmost end of the Indian subcontinent (defined here
as the modern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh,
Kerala, and Tamilnadu) is highly fragmented, a scat-
tered collection of inscriptions, archaeological ruins,
art-historical remains, and a few texts. Yet Buddhist
institutions clearly once flourished in South India.
From the edicts of AS ́OKA(third century B.C.E.) and
the written testimony of Chinese pilgrims to the pres-
ence of Buddhist interlocutors in Hindu and Jain texts
for more than a millennium, Buddhists obviously
played significant roles in the South Indian religious
landscape until at least the fourteenth century. Yet
what sort of Buddhism flourished there? What did it
mean to be a “Buddhist” in early medieval South In-
dia? What kinds of interactions took place among
Buddhists, Hindus, and Jains? Answers to such ques-
tions remain elusive.
With no direct references to Buddhism found in any
extant Malayalam or Kannada text, both Kerala and
Karnataka harbor Buddhist archaeological records that
are difficult to interpret. Only a meager collection of
Buddhist images has been unearthed in Kerala, all
roughly datable to the sixth through tenth centuries
C.E. In Karnataka, the record expands ever so slightly,
from the STUPAat Vanavas(third century C.E.) to the
fifth-century caitya at Aihole and evidence of tantric
worship at Balligave (eleventh century). STUPAs and
caityas attest to some sort of institutional organization,
royal or lay patronage, and active practices of worship,
but the inscriptional record provides no further evi-
dence concerning the status or use of such structures.
Two more substantial bodies of evidence can be
found in the archaeological ruins of Andhra Pradesh
and in the Tamil literary record. While neither pre-
sents a complete picture of Buddhist life and practice
in the South, each does provide a richer range of ma-
terial for interpretation.
The impressive ruins of Amaravat, Nagarjuna-
konda, and other sites in Andhra Pradesh constitute
the earliest evidence for Buddhism in the South (sec-
ond century B.C.E.). Although no textual production
can be located here with any certainty, these grand
stupas or mahacaityas, with their rich inscriptional
records, narrative friezes, and hundreds of Buddhist
sculptures, bespeak flourishing centers of Buddhist
practice through at least the twelfth century. Due
both to the traditional association of Amaravatand
Nagarjunakonda with NAGARJUNA(the great Mad-
hyamaka philosopher of the second century C.E.) and
to the nature of the images found there, Andhra Bud-
dhism has long been labeled “MAHAYANA” by schol-
ars. The narratives of the Buddha’s lives carved in
stone, the belief that each stupa contained relics of
the Buddha’s earthly body, and the inscriptional ref-
erences to lay donors (many of them women of the
Iksvaku royal dynasty that ruled from Nagarju-
nakonda) all point to flourishing centers of Buddhist
worship, where monastic and lay devotees honored
the remains of the Buddha, contemplated the lessons
of his many lives, and worshiped in myriad ways the
figures of buddhas past and future.
Turning southward to the Tamil-speaking region,
the true treasure trove of Buddhist artifacts is Naka-
pattinam, a coastal site mentioned in Sri Lankan,
Burmese, and Chinese sources from which over three
hundred images have been recovered. Buddhist sculp-
tures found in the midst of Hindu places of worship,
such as the six-foot standing Buddha from the
KamaksyammanTemple in Kañcpuram (fourth cen-
tury C.E.), attest to a long Buddhist influence in the
Tamil region. Yet does the presence of a Buddha
image mean that a Hindu temple was once truly “Bud-
dhist”? A seventh-century inscription from Mamalla-
puram, listing the Buddha as an incarnation of the
Hindu deity Visnu, suggests a more complex scenario.
Does a Buddha image imply a strong sense of Buddhist
sectarian affiliation, or had the Buddha simply been
absorbed into the wider South Indian pantheon by the
seventh century?
What emerges uniquely in South India from the
Tamil-speaking region is a Buddhist literary record
in languages other than Sanskrit. The three famed Pali
commentators of the fourth and fifth centuries,
for example—BUDDHAGHOSA, Buddhadatta, and
Dhammapala—claim some connection to beautiful
monasteries patronized by beneficent Tamil kings.
Through the twelfth-century works of Buddhappiya
and Kassapa, eminent THERAVADAmonks associate
themselves with southern India, with monasteries
from Nakapattinam to Kañcpuram.
Tamil is unique among the regional literary lan-
guages of India for its two premodern Buddhist works.
The older of the two remaining pieces of Buddhist lit-
erature composed in Tamil, the Manimekalai,attrib-
uted to Cattanar and dated to roughly the sixth
century, narrates the story of a young courtesan who
gradually turns away from that life to embrace Bud-
dhism. The Manimekalaipresents its audience with aINDIA, SOUTH