57.Stūpa drum panel with protective serpent

  • Second half of 1st century
  • Amaravati mahacaitya, Guntur district, Andhra Pradesh
  • British Museum, London

This drum panel depicts an elegant stūpa with a shrine, at center, framed by pilasters that resemble a stūpa enclosure railing gateway. The entwined snake that occupies the shrine is the nāga, the supreme protector of the relics housed within the stūpa drum. A canopy of foliage—like umbrellas (chattras) crowns the structure, with the branches of the bodhi tree metamorphizing into a profusion of honorific umbrellas. Inscribed railings from the period link the donors to officials in the service of King Sivamaka Sada, the last of the Sada rulers, reigning in the second half of the first century CE.