Ancient headless Buddha idol and rock-cut caves discovered
The discovery was made by Prof. T. Murugeshi, a retired archaeologist and former associate professor of Ancient History and Archaeology at MSRS College, Shirva. The Buddha image was found submerged in a water tank and retrieved with permission from the temple authorities.
Though partially damaged, the statue remains notable for its meditative grace. The seated Buddha, missing its head and right hand, is shown in Padmasana (lotus position) with both palms resting in the classic Dhyana Mudra (gesture of meditation). Faint traces of a robe across the chest and a lotus pedestal suggest it is a Dhyani Buddha, commonly associated with Mahayana Buddhism.
'The iconography and posture are unmistakably Mahayanist,' said Prof. Murugeshi. 'This figure may well have been the presiding deity of an earlier Buddhist shrine at the site, long before it became a Shaiva-Vaishnava centre.'
The adjacent caves, carved into laterite rock above the temple tank, add further depth to the site's historical importance. The three caves feature square rooms, raised plinths, porthole-style and square entrances, and sloped roofs with drainage holes — features pointing to their use as ancient monastic dwellings.
The latest findings are expected to reshape scholarly understanding of Mangaluru's religious history. The region, now a major port city, was once home to vibrant Buddhist communities. Inscriptions dating to the 10th century — including one by the Alupa king Kundavarma found at Kadri — had earlier hinted at such a presence, but conclusive archaeological evidence had remained elusive.
'This discovery settles the long-standing debate over whether Kadri was a Buddhist centre. The evidence is now undeniable,' Prof. Murugeshi said.
He noted that the Buddha statue bears stylistic similarities to a 6th-century image found in Goa's Colvale region, now displayed at the Heras Institute in Mumbai.
The archaeologist credited his fieldwork team — comprising students and research assistants from MSRS College, University College Mangaluru, and Manipal University — and thanked temple administrator Arun Kumar for facilitating the study.
Prof. Murugeshi has appealed to the Karnataka Department of Archaeology to recover and preserve the artefacts, describing them as 'priceless markers of our shared cultural past.'
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Next Story Swati Chawla One of the enduring legacies of the Dalai Lama is that for the first time, Tibetan nuns are leading their own educational institutions. Lounge takes a in-depth look at the nuns who are spearheading this change The Dalai Lama with 'geshema' graduates who subsequently completed the year-long Tantric Studies programme at Gyuto Tantric University, Sidhbari, in February 2025. Also seen in the photograph are Nangsa Choedon and Tenzin Palkyi of TNP. Gift this article "This is a precious human life. And we should do what we can." "This is a precious human life. And we should do what we can." Geshema Dawa Dolma, 43, recalls these words from the Dalai Lama during our phone interview. 'Internal work," she adds, 'is more important than external work. Nuns should work hard." Dawa Dolma teaches Tibetan language and Buddhist philosophy at Thosamling Nunnery, Institute, and Retreat Centre in Sidhpur, near Dharamsala, the seat of the 14th Dalai Lama for over six decades. 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Millennia after Mahaprajapati's ordination, Tibetan poet-activist Lhasang Tsering captured the persistence of gendered hierarchies in a roadside scene in Dharamsala. In his poem, The Monk and the Nun, first published as part of the anthology Muses in Exile, edited by Bhuchung D. Sonam (2004), two Tibetan Buddhist monastics look the same, don the same red robes, and live by the same vows. Yet one is 'ample-bellied," 'big," and 'dashing around in a Toyota," and the other is 'frail, sad-looking," 'little," and 'selling postcards by the roadside." Why? 'The big one is a monk/And the other only a nun." There have historically been fewer nunneries than monasteries in Tibet, and they were worse-resourced and did not offer the same education. Many nuns who arrived in India following the Dalai Lama, who came into exile in 1959, were destitute and illiterate. 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Norjom and her sister, Geshema Sherab Wangmo, 49, come from a family of apple farmers in Chango, Kinnaur. 'Wahan ani gompa nahin tha. Masi wagera gaon ki ani hain. Padhe likhe nahin hain (There was no nunnery there. My aunties are village nuns. They are not educated)," she says, explaining that they performed pujas but did not know the Bhoti language and did not study Buddhist philosophy. They would wear red suits and mostly stay at home. Nuns during prayer in Shugsep Nunnery, built by the Tibetan Nuns Project, near Dharamsala. Men had enjoyed greater mobility and educational access. Norjom's paternal uncle was a senior monk at the millennium-old Tabo monastery in Spiti valley. 'Woh baahar padhai karne ke liye bhai ko le kar gaye," she says—her uncle had taken her brother to a Tibetan monastery in Karnataka to study. THE PURSUIT OF EDUCATION Most Tibetan nuns mention the prospect of studying the dharma freely when they speak of why they undertook the arduous journey into exile. Delek Wangmo says, 'I had wanted to see His Holiness (the Dalai Lama) and I wanted to study philosophy." After being barred by Chinese authorities from visiting sacred Buddhist sites during a pilgrimage from Lithang to Lhasa and denied access to the Jokhang Temple, she and others journeyed to Mount Kailash and eventually escaped to Nepal and India in 1990. It was during the pilgrimage that she first learned the Tibetan alphabet and received teachings from her lama, belatedly beginning her education. Venerable Ngawang Palmo, 50, who has taken on the administrative leadership at Dolma Ling, escaped to India after some nuns in her nunnery, Gari Gompa near Lhasa, were expelled for celebrating the Dalai Lama's Nobel Peace Prize award in 1989. The Tibetan Nuns Project (TNP) was established in 1987 to support nuns who had fled Tibet. Most arrived in India illiterate. Its founding director is Rinchen Khando Choegyal, 78, a sister-in-law of the Dalai Lama, who also reinstated the Tibetan Women's Association in exile. Registered as a non-profit in the US, with its Indian office in Dolma Ling, the TNP currently supports around 900 nuns and seven nunneries. The TNP also extends material assistance and educational support to individual nuns, including older practitioners living outside nunneries or in long-term meditative retreat. Also Read | The Buddhist ateliers of ancient Magadha Two nuns studying in Dolma Ling Nunnery in Sidhpur Everyone I spoke to traced the course of monastic education for women to the Dalai Lama's encouragement, especially the Tibetan Women's Association's meeting in 1992, where he said that something needed to change urgently, 'In our society, we have as a legacy from the past the notion that nuns engage in ritual only and do not study Buddhist texts." This legacy 'perpetuated the nuns' dependence on monks as teachers," according to Venerable Lobsang Dechen, 65, former co-director of the TNP. The most significant curricular shift introduced by the TNP was the inclusion of rigorous training in philosophy and debate, disciplines central to the geshe degree and rooted in heterodox Indian philosophical traditions—which had historically excluded nuns. The geshe degree, a monastic academic tradition that began in the 17th century during the time of the 5th Dalai Lama and was later reformed and made more academically rigorous under the 13th Dalai Lama, was for centuries open only to men. In 2012, the degree was finally made available to nuns. The first batch of 20 geshemas graduated in 2016; as of December 2024, there were 73 geshemas. Studying for the four-year-long geshe degree requires almost two decades of prior monastic training, and very few nuns had managed that until recently. A WIDE INFLUENCE It is rightly and well acknowledged that no country has done more for Tibetans in exile than India. Just as true, but less often said, is how deeply India—particularly the Himalayan region—has been shaped by the moral presence, public service, and quotidian love of its Tibetan guests. Delek Wangmo notes that about 100 nuns in Dolma Ling are from the Himalayan belt in India. The TNP also supports many nuns and nunneries in Kinnaur, Spiti and Ladakh. For instance, the TNP provided textbooks and a school bus for the 700-year-old Dorjee Zong Nunnery in Zanskar, enabling students to make the 12-mile journey from the nunnery—where classes once ended at class V—to a government school offering education up to class X. Six nuns from Dorjee Zong studied in Dharamsala for years, and three of them have returned to help revive it. Many geshemas now serve as teachers and administrators in under-resourced schools and nunneries across the Indian Himalaya, continuing to strengthen local communities. Youdon Aukatsang, 55, a four-time member of the Tibetan Parliament-in-Exile (TPiE) and part of the TNP's Indian board of directors (Buddhist Women's Education Society), says on the phone that 'Tibetan women have always contributed to the struggle, but earlier they were largely unacknowledged and invisible." She observes that Tibetan society in exile has responded to the changing needs of contemporary times to make women more visible in public life and take on leadership positions. Nuns are indeed more visible in many areas of Tibetan public life. Delek Wangmo was sworn in as an Election Commissioner for the TPiE in 2020. She and Tenzin Kunsel also broke new ground as the first nuns to become teachers at Dolma Ling. Yet gender parity remains a distant goal. Nuns remain a minority among the predominantly male faculty at Dolma Ling: three women (all nuns) among 19 total teachers. The pattern extends to political representation. There are 11 female MPs in the current 45-member TPiE, and of the 10 ecclesiastical seats reserved for representatives from religious schools— two each from the four major sects of Tibetan Buddhism, viz. Gelug, Kagyu, Sakya, Nyingma and two from Bon—all are held by monks. Also Read | A new book looks at the art of Tantric Buddhism A PURPOSEFUL LIFE In her study of Sri Lankan nuns, Buddhist Nuns and Gendered Practice: In Search of the Female Renunciant (2013), anthropologist Nirmala Salgado notes that renunciant narratives are often misread through a liberal feminist lens that casts nuns as 'indigent subjects" in need of 'empowerment." The nuns she interviewed spoke instead in the idiom of moral discipline (sila) and renunciation. The Tibetan Buddhist nuns I've spoken with also articulate recent curricular changes—especially the introduction of philosophy and debate— as a way to live out the dharma more fully, framing them in the language of service and the responsibility that comes with a precious human life. They emphasise that rigorous study enables them to grasp the subtleties of texts and teachings and, more importantly, to communicate these effectively—a responsibility they regard as central to monastic vocation. Their chance conversations with younger nuns and the laity often change lives. Geshema Tenzin Dolma, 44, who joined Ngawang Palmo at the helm of Dolma Ling's administration, had dropped out of primary school in Kinnaur to help her farming family in the fields. Her life took a different path when a nun from Dolma Ling came to her village for the holidays. Inspired by the interaction, she decided to become a nun and pursue an education in Dharamsala. The nuns at Dolma Ling changed my life, too. I spent a summer with them in 2004 through a fellowship with the Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and SPIC MACAY—and returned every chance I got. Norjom made offerings for my mother at the temple in Dolma Ling when she was ill and when she passed in 2007. The nuns anchored me through grief and confusion; gave me food and a room in the nunnery; held my hand and prayed for me. Every minor trigger felt like a crisis then, and the world seemed laced with landmines. Dawa Dolma—then in her 20s—shared the wisdom from the 8th century Indian pandita Santideva: rather than trying to cover the whole earth in leather to avoid pain, one can simply wrap the soles of one's own feet. Through their philosophical counsel, intercessory prayer, and quiet pastoral care, they reminded me that the Tibetan word geshe comes from the Sanskrit kalyan mitra, literally 'a beneficial friend," or someone who can serve as a spiritual adviser or guide. Norjom returns to her village over the lean seasons and teaches the Bhoti language to young girls so that they may read religious texts. People flock to her for counsel—'What do I do about my anger?", they ask, and she tells them that to truly be Buddhist, they must study the dharma: 'Buddhist ho toh matlab bhi aana chahiye." Swati Chawla is associate professor of history and digital humanities at O.P. Jindal Global University and senior fellow in Dalai Lama and Nalanda Studies at the Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Topics You May Be Interested In Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
