Shalban vihara
| শালবন বিহার | |
Shalban vihara, Comilla, Bangladesh
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 Shown within Bangladesh
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| Location | Mainamati, Comilla District, Chittagong Division, Bangladesh |
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| Coordinates | 23°26′0″N 91°8′0″E / 23.43333°N 91.13333°ECoordinates: 23°26′0″N 91°8′0″E / 23.43333°N 91.13333°E |
| Type | Sanctuary |
Shalban vihara (Sanskrit; Bengali: শালবন বিহার Shalban Bihar) in Mainamati,Comilla, Bangladesh is one of the best known Buddhist viharas in the Indian Subcontinent and is one of the most important archaeological sites in the country. At the end of the 8th century, King Shri Bhavadeva (Vobodev) made the "Salban Bihar" in this place. The digging started from 80th decades. Many archaeological elements were found here. Most of them are kept in the Mainamati Museum now.
Originally, the monastery was called Bhavadev Bihar after the king, but today the Shalban name comes from a grove of Shal (shorea robusta) trees.
Before 1200 years ago the King Bhava Deva, the fourth ruler of the Early-Deva dynasty built that place on 168 square meters of ground. It was the royal palace for the early Buddhist students. This site, previously called Shalban Rajar Bari, came out after archaeological excavation as a Buddhist monastery and hence termed as Salban vihara from the terracotta seals and copper plates discovered. Its original name is supposed to have been Bhava Deva Mahavihara after the 4th king of the early Deva dynasty which ruled this region from the mid-7th to mid-8th centuries AD. It was built in or on the outskirts of Devaparvata, the Samatata capital bordering the Lalambi forest.
About eight kilometres west of Comilla town, lies a range of low hills known as the Mainamati-Lalmai range which is dotted with more than 50 ancient Buddhist settlements dating from the 8th to the 12th centuries. Almost at middle is the Salvan Vihara of 115 cells built around a spacious courtyard with a cruciform temple in the centre. About 5 kilometres north of Shalvan Vihara is Kutila Mura, which is a picturesque relic of a unique Buddhist establishment.
This was once a self-contained Buddhist monastery where, monks lived, studied and prayed.It was the royal palace for the early Buddhist students.Students from various places come here for their meditation and religious learning. During their study period the students stay in the dormitory/cells around the temple. It’s such a quite place inside a barren forest and one of the greatest tourist spots in Bangladesh.
Deep diggings have revealed four repair and rebuilding phases in the monastery, the earliest corresponding to period III of the cruciform central shrine. No monastery remains corresponding to period I and II (7th century AD) has yet been found. Some scanty and ill-defined remains below the present structure may suggest their existence, probably of smaller size. During the next two phases (period IV and V: 9th–10th centuries AD) new floors and thresholds were built on top of earlier remains. Two interesting features observed inside the cells, fireplaces and ornamental brick-pedestals, were not included in the original plan. Though there was a community kitchen and dining establishment, many of the resident monks (probably sramanas: lay-students) preferred to cook their meals individually inside their cells. The pedestals certainly served the purpose of private cult worship. Discoveries made during explorations and excavations suggests that this establishment may probably have some provision for accommodating poorer lay students (sramanas) from neighbouring settlements with cheaper arrangements for cooking their own food with materials brought from home, an age-old practice still in vogue in certain parts of rural Bengal . Excavations at Shalban Vihara have also exposed a number of subsidiary structures including a community dining establishment, a small oblong, a pillared and a square shrine with exquisitely moulded plinth, two oblong chapels and a number of small votive stupas inside, and an interesting medium-sized shrine with a small sanctum connected by a long narrow passage and enclosed by a solid and massive brick structure, a columned terrace and colonnades just outside the monastery quadrangle.
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