Seated Buddha to preside over Vijayawada City

Amaravati to get a facelift

The 125-feet tall Dhyana Buddha, India’s tallest Buddha statue in Amaravathi on the banks of river Krishna is set to preside over the new capital. While the erstwhile capital, Hyderabad, has a Buddha statue in standing position, which turned the Tank Bund of the Hussain Sagar Lake into a tourist hotspot, this seated Buddha has a great potential to make Amaravathi an international tourist place.

The government is planning to improve transport facility to Amaravathi from Guntur and Vijayawada by road, besides introducing boating in river Krishna from Nandigama and Ibrahimpatnam to attract tourists.

A great history is associated with this 125-foot tall statue and the place as such. The first statue is believed to be erected by Emperor Ashoka himself.

Later, when the Satavahana dynasty made Dharnikota as their capital, the statue was further developed. However, in the later years, it was neglected and the statue totally disappeared from the scene. It was only when the Tibetan’s spiritual leader Dalai Lama decided to hold his ‘Kalachara’ conclave in 2004 that the government decided to restore the statue to its past glory.

A government officer, R Mallikharjuna Rao, conceived this tallest Buddha statue in a seated position measuring 98 feet. The government had started the project at an estimated cost of Rs 1.7 crore in 2004, on a sprawling five acre land on the banks of the river. Beneath the seated Dhyana Buddha, there is a huge conference hall, a Buddhist International Library and 20 luxury suites for the international tourists. This conference hall has 8 entrances, replicating the sculptures of Ajanta and Ellora. The eight entrances have 20-foot tall Ashoka pillar replicas, which stand as main attraction to the seated Buddha statue.