City Pulse

Puri Beach is a beach in the city of Puri in the state of Odisha, India. It is on the shore of the Bay of Bengal. It is known for being a tourist attraction and a Hindu sacred place.[1][2] The beach is the site of the annual Puri Beach Festival, which is co-sponsored by the Indian Ministry of Tourism, the city of Odisha, the Development Commissioner of Handicrafts, and the Eastern Zonal Cultural Center, Kolkata.[3] The beach hosts sand art displays, including work by international award winning local sand artist Sudarshan Pattnaik. The small hill near the village of the same name has rich Buddhist antiquities. A large-scale excavation has unearthed two large monasteries, a big stupa, Buddhist shrines, sculptures, and a large number of votive stupas. This excavation revealed the establishment of this Buddhist centre at least from the time of the Gupta king Narasimha Gupta Baladitya (first half of the sixth century A.D.). Buddhism had developed at this place - unhindered upto the 12th century A.D.