Arrange the different stages of the discovering of Amaravati in a chr…

Arrange the different stages of the discovering of Amaravati in a chronological order :

(A) In 1854, Walter Elliot visited Amaravati and collected several sculpture panels.
(B) The slabs from Amaravati were taken to different places like the India Office in Madras.
(C) A local Raja stumbled upon the ruins of the stupa at Amaravati.
(D) A British officer named Colin Mackenzie visited the site of Amaravati.

Choose the correct answer from the options given below:

Answer & explanation

Correct answer: option 3

The correct answer is Option (3) → (C), (D), (A), (B)

(C) A local Raja stumbled upon the ruins of the stupa at Amaravati. — 1796. The raja wanted to build a temple and decided to use the stone.

(D) A British officer named Colin Mackenzie visited the site of Amaravati. — some years later. He found several pieces of sculpture and made detailed drawings, but his reports were never published.

(A) In 1854, Walter Elliot visited Amaravati and collected several sculpture panels. — 1854. Elliot, the commissioner of Guntur, took the panels away to Madras; they came to be called the Elliot marbles.

(B) The slabs from Amaravati were taken to different places like the India Office in Madras. — by the 1850s, slabs had begun to be taken to the Asiatic Society of Bengal at Calcutta, to the India Office in Madras and some even to London.

Note: The question is not properly framed, as the dates of (A) and (B) overlap: the book says the slabs had begun to be taken to different places “by the 1850s”, and Elliot’s visit of 1854 falls in the same decade. However, (C) in 1796 and (D) some years later come first in any case, and only Option (3) begins with (C), (D). Therefore, Option (3) is the most appropriate answer.

NCERT (2026-27): “8. ‘Discovering’ Stupas The Fate of Amaravati and Sanchi … Each stupa has a history of its own – as we have just seen, some of these are histories of how they were built. But there are histories of discoveries as well, and let us now turn to some of these. In 1796, a local raja who wanted to build a temple stumbled upon the ruins of the stupa at Amaravati. He decided to use the stone, and thought there might be some treasure buried in what seemed to be a hill. Some years later, a British official named Colin Mackenzie (see also Chapter 7) visited the site. Although he found several pieces of sculpture and made detailed drawings of them, these reports were never published. In 1854, Walter Elliot, the commissioner of Guntur (Andhra Pradesh), visited Amaravati and collected several sculpture panels and took them away to Madras. (These came to be called the Elliot marbles after him.) He also discovered the remains of the western gateway and came to the conclusion that the structure at Amaravati was one of the largest and most magnificent Buddhist stupas ever built. By the 1850s, some of the slabs from Amaravati had begun to be taken to different places: to the Asiatic Society of Bengal at Calcutta, to the India Office in Madras and some even to London.…”