Bhattiprolu
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Bhattiprolu is a small village in Guntur District of Andhra Pradesh State in Southern India. The Kingdom of Prati palaputra (5th century BC) is identified with Bhattiprolu and appears to be the earliest known kingdom in Guntur District.[1]
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[edit] Location
Bhattiprolu is connected by a road and rail network to Guntur City on the way to Repalle. It is around 28 km from Tenali.
[edit] Description
Bhattiprolu is well known for its Buddha stupa (Chinna Lanja dibba and Vikramarka kota dibba) built about 3rd-2nd century BC. This is where Alexander Rea discovered inscriptions of a special variety on the lids of stone caskets. The inscribed stone casket is considered to be the Rosetta stone of South India as Asokan Brahmi scripts is incised. The script is considered as the progenitor of modern Telugu and Tamil scripts. [2]
Three mounds were discovered in Bhattiprolu in 1870 and excavated in 1892 by Rea. Three stone relic caskets were found to contain crystal caskets, relics of Buddha and jewels.
During excavations at Bhattiprolu there has been found linguistic evidence of a South Indian language that belongs to 3rd Century BC, well known as Bhattiprolu script to historians.
From available inscriptional evidence, King Kubera was ruling over Bhattiprolu around 230 BC, followed by Sala Kings.
[edit] References
- ^ History of Guntur. Guntur Medical College. Retrieved on 2006-08-08.
- ^ Inscribed lid of stone reliquary. Government Museum Chennai. Retrieved on 2006-08-08.
