Nala Sopara - History

History

SHURPARAKA.......SHUR (BRAVE) AND PARAKA (CITY) now called as sopara or nalasopara,In ancient times, it was the largest township on India's west coast, trading with Mesopotamia, Egypt, Cochin, Arabia and Eastern Africa. Proof of Ashokan inscriptions have also been recovered from Sopara, Buddhist text gives details that it was a prominent Buddhist area. During excavation ruins of a Buddhist Stupa were found. From the center of the stupa (inside a brick built chamber) a large stone coffer was excavated which contained eight bronze images of Maitreya Buddha which belong to the 8th-9th century A.D. The coffer contained a relic caskets, numerous gold flowers and fragments of a begging bowl. A silver coin of Gautamiputra Satakarni was also found from the mound.

There were 14 major ashokan edicts, the fact that two of them were found at sopara indicates that it was an important centre of buddhist activity. the edicts can be found at the prince of wales museum in the ancient history section. the fragment of the ninth rock edict is a massive octagonal block of stone covered with mauryan brahmi writing, roughly the size of a large television screen. in many ways, the rock edict was the b.c. version of TV and mass media. if shah rukh khan plastered Mumbai with hoardings of his film at every strategic street junction, emperor ashoka ensured that rock hoardings propagating his dhamma were installed at strategic points in his empire, including a bilingual Greek and aramic edict at kandahar. and although mr khan's telegenic empire surpasses the emperor's material one, his stones of empire have survived the vagaries of history's tumultuous box-office. Sopara, situated in the thane district of bombay, was the site of an ancient sea port and town. given the heavy human traffic of a port town, what better place to position one's message. According to historian sadashiv gorakshkar, "as a sequel to the third buddhist council in the eighteenth year of ashoka's reign in 256 b.c, it was decided to depute several theras (messengers) to various parts of the country. one of the areas so covered was aparanta where yona (yavana) dharmaraksita was sent to propagate the law. in spite of the various interpretations of aparanta, it is now accepted that the entire region of thekonkan, i.e. the area between the sahyadri and the sea was included in aparanta, and suparaka or sopara was an important tirtha in aparanta." maybe today's nalla sopara won't find its way to the columns of page three, but it has an eternal place in Ptolemy's periphus maris erythraci and in ancient Hindu, jain and buddhist literature. The purnavandana contains a legend about gautama's visit to sopara at the instance of the merchant purna. also, ashoka deliberately chose to send a yona dharmarakshita (Greek messenger) to sopara because of its international milieu and the presence of alexandrian Greeks, romans, parthians and Arabs. it was around sopara that a major centre of buddhist activity, in all probability a university centre, flourished at kanheri almost until the advent of the Portuguese in the 15th century. sopara slipped into historical obscurity until that historic Easter of 1882. in that landmark April, pandit indraji excavated the mound in sopara, locally called buruda rajacha killa or 'fort of the basket-making king'. he opened the centre of the stupa and 13 feet below discovered a stone coffer. this coffer (on display at the Asiatic society) had in the centre a copper casket containing, one within the other like Russian dolls, four other caskets of silver, stone, crystal and gold. the gold casket contained gold flowers and 13 bits of earthenware, which scholars feel could be shards from buddha's begging bowl. around the copper casket, keeping ancient watch were eight metal images of buddhas. although scholars place the date of the images and the casket between the 2nd and 8th century ad, the rock edicts are hard proof of the ashokan connection. the structure of the stupa is also traced to the ashokan era.