Ratnagiri (Odia: ରତ୍ନଗିରି, meaning "hill of jewels") is the site of a ruined mahavihara, once the major Buddhist monastery in modern Odisha, India.

These were little known until the 1960s when major excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India ("ASI") revealed the site, producing large quantities of very fine sculpture.

[4] The buildings are mainly in brick (much of which has now been removed), but the doorways, pillars and sculpture are mostly in two types of stone, which contrast attractively.

They are mostly images of Buddha and the Buddhist pantheon, and analysis of the trends in subjects over time suggests that Ratnagiri turned to become a centre of Tantric Buddhism, as did Nalanda in Bihar.

The main shrine image is a colossal seated Buddha, 12 feet (3.7 m) high including the base, flanked by smaller standing figures of Padmapani and Vajrapani holding chamaras.

These are "door guardians" and the innermost figures are large males leaning on clubs; however, the overall impression of the groups is hardly intimidating.

On the outside wall the only one left in place is the female figure (illustrated) holding a flowering branch and making the varadamudra with her proper right hand.

[18] In a niche inside the porch is an image of the river goddess Yamuna in "sisterly camaraderie" with two smaller companions (illustrated below).

There was probably a matching Ganga panel on the other side, but this is now missing; the pair are very common figures at the threshold of Buddhist and Hindu establishments.

[19] Other common figures in monasteries are pairs of Pancika (the Hindu Kubera) and his consort Hariti, representing material and spiritual wealth at more than one level.

[20] The style of these figures demonstrates that they were made at the same period as the sculpture on the Baitala Deula Hindu temple in Bhubaneswar, and it has been suggested that some individual sculptors worked at both sites, "a lack of sectarian specialization" in builders and carvers in India being very common.

One part, with a central doorway flanked on both sides by three niches, was exceptionally elaborate, and has been reconstructed by the ASI, replacing missing elements with matching shaped but undecorated stone blocks.

[22] Monastery 2, next to Monastery 1 but much smaller, features a central paved courtyard flanked by a pillared veranda around which are eighteen cells, a central shrine featuring an image of Shakyamuni in Varada Mudra flanked by Brahma and Sakra, and elaborately ornamented entrance porticos.

[30] Prominent, well-preserved standing statues of the bodhisattvas Vajrapani and Padmapani can be found in niches in a portico.

Most of the smaller ones show a seated deity figure in a niche on one side, and many are decorated with lotus petals and beaded tassels around their shaft.

[38] A Tibetan history, the Pag Sam Jon Zang, identifies Ratnagiri as an important centre in the development of the Kalachakratantra in the 10th century, an assertion supported by the discovery of a number of votive stupas, plaques, and other artifacts featuring Kalachakra imagery.

Through no longer in an affluent condition the Buddhist establishment at Ratnagiri is thought to have continued until about the 16th century,[42] during which there was a "modest revival of structural activity", including a restoration of the main stupa.

The exceptionally large number and range of figures shown, above all on the small stupas, makes Ratnagiri an outstanding Indian site for the study of Buddhist images.

Ratnagiri is notable for a larger proportion of female figures than other groups of Buddhist sculpture, which has been connected with an increasing interest in esoteric forms of Buddhism, though writers disagree over which traditions were involved.

[53] Apart from the clay seals mentioned above, only three inscriptions of any significance have been found at the site, all extracts from Buddhist texts, in two cases dealing with the rewards accruing to those who erect stupas.

[56] These are very rare, and may relate to the practice, described in some Hindu Tantric texts but no known Buddhist ones, of offering both semen and cut hair to a deity (Kali especially).