In Buddhism, a stupa (Sanskrit: स्तूप, lit. 'heap', IAST: stūpa) is a domed hemispherical structure containing several types of sacred relics, including images, statues, metals, and śarīra—the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns. It is used as a place of pilgrimage and meditation. Walking around a stupa in a clockwise direction, known as pradakhshina, has been an important ritual and devotional practice in Buddhism since the earliest times, and stupas always have a pradakhshina path around them. The original South Asian form is a large solid dome above a tholobate, or drum, with vertical sides, which usually sits on a square base. There is no access to the inside of the structure. In large stupas, there may be walkways for circumambulation on top of the base as well as on the ground below it. Large stupas have, or had, vedikā railings outside the path around the base, often highly decorated with sculpture, especially at the torana gateways, of which there are usually four. At the top of the dome is a thin, vertical element, with one or more horizontal discs spreading from it. These were chatras, symbolic umbrellas, and have not survived, if not restored. The Great Stupa at Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh, is the most famous and best-preserved early stupa in India. Apart from very large stupas, there are many smaller stupas in a range of sizes, which typically have much taller drums, relative to the height of the dome. Small votive stupas built by or paid for by pilgrims might be less than a metre high, and laid out in rows by the hundred, as at Ratnagiri, Odisha, India. The principal design of the stupa may have been influenced by the shikharas seen on Hindu temples. As Buddhism spread across Asia via the Silk Road, stupas were stylistically altered into other cultural and structural forms used for the same purposes, like the pagodas of East Asian Buddhism or the chortens of Tibetan Buddhism. In Southeast Asia, various different elongated shapes of domes evolved, leading to high, thin spires. A related architectural term is a chaitya, which is a prayer hall or temple containing a stupa.
Description and history
Stupas may have originated as pre-Buddhist tumuli in which śramaṇas were buried in a seated position, called caitya. In early Buddhist inscriptions in India, stupa and caitya appear to be almost interchangeable, though caitya has a broader meaning, and unlike stupa does not define an architectural form. In pre-Buddhist India, caitya was a term for a shrine, sanctuary, or holy place in the landscape, generally outdoors, inhabited by, or sacred to, a particular deity. In the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, near the end of his life, the Buddha remarks to Ananda how beautiful are the various caitya around Vaishali. In later times and in other countries, cetiya/caitya implies the presence of important relics. Both words have forms prefixed by maha for "great", "large", or "important", but scholars find the difference between a mahastupa and a stupa, or mahacetiya and cetiya, hard to pin down. Some authors have suggested that stupas were derived from a wider cultural tradition from the Mediterranean to the Ganges Valley and can be related to the conical mounds on circular bases from the 8th century BCE that are found in Phrygia (tomb of Midas, 8th c. BCE), Lydia (tomb of Alyattes, 6th c. BCE), or in Phoenicia (tombs of Amrit, 5th c. BCE). Some authors suggest stupas emerged from megalithic mound burials with chambers, which likely represent proto-stupas. Archaeologists in India have observed that a number of early Buddhist stupas or burials are found in the vicinity of much older, pre-historic burials, including megalithic burial sites. This includes sites associated with the Indus Valley Civilization, where broken Indus-era pottery was incorporated into later Buddhist burials. Scholars have noted structural and functional features of the stupa (including its general mound shape and the practice of surrounding stupas with a stone, relic chamber, or wooden railing) with both pre-Mauryan-era cairn and pre-historic megalithic "round mound" burials with chambers found in India, which likely represent a "proto-stupa". In Dholavira, an archeological site associated with the Indus Valley Civilization, there are several large and high "hemispherical monuments" of tumulus with brick-masonry found with burial chambers inside. Among them, Tumulus-1 and Tumulus-2 mounds have been excavated. They consist of a deep and wide rock-cut chamber, surrounded on the ground by a massive circular mud-brick structure made in two tiers, and filled in and topped with earth to form a domed shape. There is also evidence of plastering on the exterior of Tumulus-1, bearing a 10-mm-thick plaster of pinkish-white clay over brick masonry. These forms of hemispherical monuments or tumulus of brick masonry with similar layouts may have been inspirations for later stupas. Some stupas not believed to have been looted have been found empty when excavated, as have some prehistoric cairn sites, and animal bones are suspected to have occasionally been deposited at both types of sites.
Mounds for the relics of the Buddha (5th century BCE)
Religious buildings in the form of the Buddhist stupa, a dome-shaped structure, started to be used in India as commemorative monuments associated with storing sacred relics of the Buddha. After his parinirvana, Buddha's remains were cremated and the ashes divided and buried under eight mounds, with two further mounds encasing the urn and the embers. According to some early Buddhist sources, the Buddha himself had suggested this treatment, and when asked what a stupa was, had demonstrated the basic design: he folded his robe on the ground, placed his begging bowl upside down on it, with his staff above that. The relics of the Buddha were spread between eight stupas, in Rajagriha, Vaishali, Kapilavastu, Allakappa, Ramagrama, Pava, Kushinagar, and Vethapida. Lars Fogelin has stated that the Relic Stupa of Vaishali is likely the earliest archaeologically known stupa. Guard rails—consisting of posts, crossbars, and a coping—became a feature of safety surrounding a stupa. The Buddha had left instructions about how to pay homage to the stupas: "And whoever lays wreaths or puts sweet perfumes and colours there with a devout heart, will reap benefits for a long time". This practice would lead to the decoration of the stupas with stone sculptures of flower garlands in the Classical period.
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