Buddhavanam:
The contestants of Miss World 2025 from 22 countries visited Buddhavanam, a Buddhist theme park, on the occasion of Buddha Purnima recently.
- It is a Buddhist theme park located on the northern bank of Krishna River in Telangana.
- The Government of India has sanctioned the project as part of developing an integrated Buddhist Circuit with a vision to attract a large number of domestic and international tourists, particularly from southeast Asia.
- It has an extent of 279 acres.
- It is developed to showcase the life and teachings of Gautama Buddha.
- It features the Entrance plaza, Buddhacharitha Vanam (Life of Buddha), Jataka Park (which highlights stories from Buddha’s previous lives), Dhyana Vanam for meditation, the Stupa Vanam (home to the imposing Maha Stupa), and an in-house Buddhist Heritage Museum.
- There are intricate carvings on the drum and dome portions of the Mahastupa and a virtual hanging sky with lotus petals under the sky inside the Mahastupa.
- Located just beside Nagarjuna Sagar, a reservoir formed due to the construction of the dam across the river Krishna, Nagarjunakonda or Sriparvata – Vijayapuri, served as capital city of the Ikshvaku dynasty, which ruled Andhradesa during the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D.
- Nagarjunakonda was named after the famous Buddhist scholar and Madhyamika philosopher Acharya Nagarjuna.
- Nagarjunakonda was a centre of Mahayana Buddhism, where many Buddhist sects had their monasteries, shrines, and stupas built to propagate the Dhamma.
- Excavations conducted at Nagarjunakonda between 1954 and 1960 have revealed the existence of a Maha Stupa, Votive Stupas, Chaityas, Silamandapas and a good number of Buddhist sculptural panels and antiquities.
- The structures exposed also included a palace complex and a few Brahmanical temples built of bricks.
- The sculptural panels were depicted with the major events of the life of the Buddha and Jataka stories.
- Most of the structures were reconstructed on the Nagarjunakonda Island and at Anupu, a ferry point on the right bank of the river Krishna.
