Practicing Success

Target Exam

CUET

Subject

History

Chapter

Ancient India: Thinkers, Beliefs and Buildings

Question:

After which officer were the sculptural panels of Amaravati Stupa named?
1. Colin Mackenzie
2. H.H. Cole
3. Walter Elliot
4. Alexander Cunningham

Options:

1

2

3

4

Correct Answer:

3

Explanation:

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  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.