Nagarjuna Sagar Dam

Nagarjuna Sagar Dam spans the Krishna River and is one of the largest masonry dams in the world, completed in 1969. The reservoir it created — stretching some 100 km upstream — is an impressive sight and provides irrigation water to millions of hectares of farmland in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The dam itself is viewed from a lookout point on the Andhra Pradesh side.

The boat to Nagarjunakonda island departs from the jetty near the dam. Watching the reservoir from here, with the island visible in the middle distance, gives context for the scale of the inundation — an entire river valley civilisation now lies submerged under these waters.

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When the dam was completed in 1969, the resulting reservoir submerged the entire valley of Nagarjunakonda — known to archaeologists as one of the most densely Buddhist-settled regions of ancient South India. The race to excavate before the waters rose became one of the largest archaeological salvage operations in Indian history.

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