Recently students from the Utkal University in India have unearthed an idol of the Lord Buddha. Reports claim the ancient statue with the seven-head snake must be 1,400-year-old.
The Lord Buddha idol was first discovered by university students from the Govindapur area in the Khurda district in the Odisha state in India. According to The Odisha Sun Times, 80 percent of the idol was actually buried in the soil. Only the face of the statue was spotted outside the ground.
Researchers of the university have already requested assistance from the State Museum and from the Archaeological Survey of India for further research about the statue. This idol of the Lord Buddha was first noticed by the university student Dakhineswar Jena beneath a banyan tree. Jena discussed the fact with the Assistant Professor Anam Behera.
Professor Behera then led a team of the researchers along with Jena and other students to start digging near the banyan tree. After digging almost 3 ft, the team unveiled the seven-head snake of the Lord Buddha statue. Later the 5 ft statue was completely unearthed.
The ancient statue has some similarities with other previously discovered statues from Lalitgiri and Ratnagiri in the Odisha state in India. From the current discovery, it is quite clear that Buddhists were living in the Khurda district. After the discovery of the Lord Buddha idol, some information was surfaced from the local people.
According to the local people, there was rain for the seven consecutive days when Lord Buddha was busy in meditating in that area. That time one seven-head snake protected him from any kind of hindrance. No doubt this is a very rare idol and very few of them are so far found in other places in the Odisha district.
According to Archaeology, recently a Buddha statue of 12-foot-tall was also discovered in China. The idol was uncovered when the Hongmen Reservoir water level was lowered as a part of the construction project for hydropower. No doubt this discovery of the Lord Buddha statue was very important from the archaeological perspective.
Now the revelation of the Lord Buddha idol in India must be considered as a great breakthrough by the university students. It will help a lot in the field of research. Enthusiasts must wait to know the next development about this discovery.
