The relics of Ratnagiri

The discovery of a 1.4-metre-tall Buddha head, along with tablets and stupas, some over 1,500 years old, in Odisha’s Ratnagiri has brought the remote village into the limelight and attracted scholars from as far away as Egypt. The excavation has unearthed important historical details, such as Ratnagiri once being a major centre of Tantric Buddhism, while posing unforeseen problems for the experts, reports Satyasundar Barik