Chhatia Bata

Ratnagiri, Odisha

Ratnagiri means hill of jewels, and what survives is a ruin: once the major Buddhist monastery in Odisha, worked on from the 5th century to the 13th, abandoned by perhaps the 16th and lost until the ASI dug it out in the 1960s. Monastery 1 is the reason to make the trip, with a carved doorway, an open courtyard with cells and verandah around it, and a colossal Buddha in the shrine at its centre. Around Stupa 1 stand several hundred smaller stupas. Much of the sculpture went to museums elsewhere; a site museum keeps the rest.