Lalitagiri (also known as Naltigiri) is a large Buddhist complex in Odisha, India, that includes major stupas, ‘esoteric’ Buddha images, and monasteries (viharas).
It is one of the region’s oldest sites. Buddha’s relics have been discovered in this complex. At this location, Tantric Buddhism was practiced.
Lalitagiri is part of the “Diamond Triangle,” which also includes the nearby Ratnagiri and Udayagiri sites. It was once considered that one or more of these structures were the huge Pushpagiri Vihara mentioned in ancient records, but this has since been proven to be at a different location.
M.M. Chakravarty, the then Sub Divisional Officer in Jajpur, was the first to identify archaeological artifacts from the Diamond Triangle sites in 1905. Later, in the Memoirs of Archaeological Survey of India, R.P. Chanda of the Indian Museum in Kolkata documented the site in 1927 and 1928. (ASI).
The property was designated as a protected monument by the federal government in 1937. The Utkal University conducted minor excavations at the site in 1977.
Between 1985 and 1991, the Archaeological Survey of India’s Bhubaneswar Circle performed detailed excavations. According to these findings, Lalitgiri, one of Orissa’s earliest Buddhist sites, maintained a continuous cultural sequence from the post-Mauryan period (322–185 BC) until the 13th century AD.
It is also assumed that this site had an uninterrupted presence of Buddhism from the 3rd century BC to the 10th century AD. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) began digging at Lalitgiri in 1985 in order to find Pushpagiri, a significant Buddhist site referenced in the chronicles of Chinese traveler Xuanzang.