The stupa
Can a mound of dirt
represent the Buddha, the path to Enlightenment, a mountain and the universe
all at the same time? It can if it is a stupa. The stupa is an important form
of Buddhist architecture, though it predates Buddhism. It is generally
considered to be a sepulchral monument—a place of burial or a receptacle for
religious objects. At its simplest, a stupa is a dirt burial mound faced with
stone. In Buddhism, the earliest stupas contained portions of the Buddha’s ashes,
and as a result, the stupa began to be associated with the body of the Buddha.
Adding the Buddha’s ashes to the mound of dirt activated it with the energy of
the Buddha himself.
Early stupas
Before Buddhism, great teachers
were buried in mounds. Some were cremated, but sometimes they were buried in a
seated, meditative position. The mound of earth covered them up. Thus, the
domed shape of the stupa came to represent a person seated in meditation much
as the Buddha was when he achieved Enlightenment and knowledge of the Four
Noble Truths. The base of the stupa represents his crossed legs as he sat in a
meditative pose. The middle portion is the Buddha’s body and the top of the
mound, where a pole rises from the apex surrounded by a small fence, represents
his head. Before images of the human Buddha were created, reliefs often
depicted practitioners demonstrating devotion to a stupa.
The ashes of the Buddha were
buried in stupas built at locations associated with important events in the
Buddha’s life including Lumbini (where he was born), Bodh Gaya (where he
achieved Enlightenment), Deer Park at Sarnath (where he preached his first
sermon sharing the Four Noble Truths (also called the dharma or the law), and
Kushingara (where he died). The choice of these sites and others were based on
both real and legendary events.
“Calm and glad"
According to legend, King Ashoka,
who was the first king to embrace Buddhism (he ruled over most of the Indian
subcontinent from c. 269 - 232 B.C.E.), created 84,000 stupas and divided the
Buddha’s ashes among them all. While this is an exaggeration (and the stupas
were built by Ashoka some 250 years after the Buddha’s death), it is clear that
Ashoka was responsible for building many stupas all over northern India and the
other territories under the Mauryan Dynasty in areas now known as Nepal,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan.
One of Ashoka's goals was to
provide new converts with the tools to help with their new faith. In this,
Ashoka was following the directions of the Buddha who, prior to his death
(parinirvana), directed that stupas should be erected in places other than
those associated with key moments of his life so that “the hearts of many shall
be made calm and glad.” Ashoka also built stupas in regions where the people
might have difficulty reaching the stupas that contained the Buddha’s ashes.
