Sumanapal Bhikkhu
The
stupa is an indispensable feature of almost every Buddhist monastery in
Buddhist countries like Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia. Stupas were
generally built in sites with considerable natural beauty. All Stupas including
those built in modern times, are supposed to enshrine a particle, and in most
cases a minute one, of the corporal remains of the Buddha, his disciples and
holy persons from which they derive their sacred character. The devout Buddhist
while worshipping a stupa containing a relic of the Buddha feels as if he is
worshipping the Buddha himself.
A
stupa used as such for religious worship by the people of the country is
extremely rare today in India, the land from which the Buddhist religion and
the stupa were adopted by the countries of eastern and southern Asia. But in
those days when the Buddha was still honored as a prophet in India and when
large number of people in India guided their lines according to the teachings
of the Buddha, the stupas must have been a familiar feature of the landscape in
many parts of India proper as it is today in Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
The
stupa was adopted by the early Buddhists of India as a means of honoring the
founder of their faith. As it is generally admitted now, the image of the
Buddha was unknown in the early period of the history of Buddhism, and the Lord
was worshipped by paying homage to various religious symbols representing him,
the objects with which he was associated while he was alive and above all his
corporal remains which were deposited in stupas. The worship of the bodily
relies of the Buddha has occupied a great place in popular Buddhism from the
earliest times and it seems indeed paradoxical that the early Buddhists, who
were never weary of emphasizing the evil and impermanent nature of the human
body, were get so enthusiastic in worshipping the bodily remains of their
master and of the early features of the church stupas were built in later times
not only to enshrine corporal relies of the Buddha or of saints, but also to
mark the sacred spots at which some important event connected with the religion
had taken place, for example, the spot at which the Buddha delivered his first
sermon, stupas of then class may conveniently be referred to as memorials.
A stupa (from Sanskrit, stūpa, Pāli, "thūpa", literally meaning "heap") is
a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, typically the ashes of deceased, used by Buddhists
as a place of meditation. Stupas originated as pre-Buddhist earthen burial mounds, in which ascetics were buried in a seated position, called
chaitya . After the parinirvana of the Buddha, his remains were cremated and the ashes
divided and buried under eight mounds with two further mounds encasing the urn
and the embers. Little is known about these early stupas, particularly since it
has not been possible to identify the original ten monuments. However, some
later stupas, such as at Sarnath and Sanchi, seem to be embellishments of earlier mounds.
In the third century B.C., after embracing
the Buddhism, the emperor Ashoka had the original stupas opened and the remains distributed
among the several thousand stupas he had built. Nevertheless, the stupas at the
eight places associated with the life of the Buddha continued to be of
particular importance. Accordingly, the importance of a stupa changed from
being a funerary monument to being an object of veneration. According to Brahmi, Kharoshti, Pali and Sanskrit edicts Ashoka had constructed 84,000 stupas all over the
south Asia. With the spread of Buddhism, due particularly to
the missionary activities in the reign of Asoka, the cult of relies and with it
the idea of the stupa were carried to various regions outside India proper and
become an important feature of the religions practices of those countries. The
stupa in course of time, underwent many important changes in its out word form
in India itself; while on those lands outside India, it developed on lines
peculiar to each country, being influenced by the changes in the doctrine, the
artistic traditions of the people and various other factors, so that certain
stupas which we find in further India and Malay Archipelago can hardly be
recognized as evolved from the ancient Indian model. The evolution of the stupa
in India and other Asiatic countries is a very fascinating and instruction
study and a study of the stupa in Sri Lanka will show that it has deviated less
from the ancient Indian type.
The stupa was elaborated as the
chorten of Tibet and the pagoda in East Asia. The pagoda has various forms that
also include bell-shaped and pyramidal styles. In the Western context, there is
no clear distinction between the stupa and the pagoda. In general, however, stupa is used for a Buddhist
structure of India or south-east Asia, while pagoda
refers to a building in East Asia which can be entered and which may be secular
in purpose.
Stupas were built in Sri Lanka soon after King
Devanampiyatissa
converted to Buddhism; the first stupa to be built was the Thuparamaya. Later on Sri Lanka went on to build many stupas over the
years, some like the Jetavanarama in Anuradhapura being one of the tallest ancient structures in the world. Sri Lanka also boasts construction of stupas,
which have used most advanced engineering techniques and knowledge, for example
the use of 'lightning conductors' and 'special shelters vatadage', which is the reason they have been standing undamaged for
thousands of years.
According
to the sacred tradition, the corporeal relies which remained after the body of
the Great Teacher had been cremated at Kushinara, were divided into eight
shares among the representatives of eight famous cities who were present at the
obsequies. According to a later tradition, certain special relies like
the collar bone and the four canine teeth were not included in these eight
shares. The recipients of the eight shares of the main body of relics took them
to their own cities and built stupas over them. The Indian conception of the
stupa spread throughout the Buddhist world and evolved into such
different-looking monuments as the bell-shaped dagoba (“heart of garbha”)
of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), the terraced temple of Borobudur
in Java, and the multistoried pagodas of China, Korea, and Japan. The basic
symbolism, in which the central relic is identified with the sacred person or
concept commemorated and also with the building itself, is retained. Worship of
a stupa consists in walking around the monument in the clockwise direction.
Even when the stupa is sheltered by a building, it is always a freestanding
monument
According
to the unanimous tradition of the Sinhalese, Buddhism was accepted as the state
religion of the island during the time of Asoka, the great who sent religious
mission to Sri Lanka. At that time the ruler of the island was Devanampiya
Tissa and the mission to Sri Lanka was considered so important that it was
entrusted to Asoka’s son (according to the northern tradition his brother) Mahendra
(Mahindra)who had taken holy Orders. The king of Sri Lanka welcomes the
missionaries and the king along with many of his countries embraced Buddhism. A
monastery was founded at the capital Anuradhapura and a branch of the sacred Bodhi-tree
of Buddha Gaya was brought and planted amidst great rejoicings.
Devanampiya Tissa also built the stupa in Sri Lanka which according to
tradition enshrines the collar bone of the Buddha. The stupa, known as the Thuparama
is of great sincerity in the estimation of the Buddhists of Sri Lanka and is
still one of the principal places of pilgrimage at Anuradhapura. It has
undergone repair on many occasions in the course of its history of over two
thousand years, and is therefore, not preserved today in the form which it had
in the third century B.C.
In
the reign of Uttiya who was the younger brother and successor of Devanampiya
tissa, Mahinda died and the relics of the saint were entombed in a number of
stupas one of these, built near the summit of the sacred hill of Mihintale
(eight miles to the east of Anuradhapura) where according to tradition, the
first meeting of the apostle and the king took place. This is still an object
of devotion to the millions of Buddhists in the Island. This stupa, known as
the Amkasthala, has many architectural features in common with the Thuparama
and, like the latter, has been subject to repeated restoration. In comparison
with some of the later stupas of Sri Lanka, the Thuparama and the Amkasthala
are of modest dimension, the diameter of the former being 59ft, and that of the
latter only 29ft.
Only
a few decades after the introduction of Buddhism in Sri Lanka the Tamils
invaded the island and sovereignty of Anuradhapura passed into the hands of
these invaders. They were adherents of Brahmanism and as a result no stupas were
built in Anuradhapura or the neighboring districts during the period of Tamil
domination. Sinhalese princes of the Buddhist faith however ruled at Mahagama
(now Tissamaharama) in the south west and at Kalyani (modern Kalaniya, near
Colombo) in the west of the island, and they built stupas at their seats of
Government while the northern part of the island was under foreign rule. The
stupa at Kalaniya is supposed to commemorate the visit of the Buddha to the
spot at the invitation of a Naga King; and its proximity to the modern capital of
Sri Lanka has now made it one of the most frequented shrines in the Island.
The
reign of Vattagamini Abhaya (C. 44-17 B.C.) is a memorable one for the
development of stupa building in Sri Lanka. He built the Abhaygiri vihara now
erroneously called the Jetavana.
In
the evolution of the stupa in Sri Lanka, it is the super structure i.e. the
portion above the dome, which underwent considerable development. The terraces
and the dome remained, during a period of a millennium and a half,
substantially the same; and the shrines, even today show very little change so
far as these parts of the structure are concerned. But it is otherwise with the
superstructure. In such stupas if ancient Sri Lanka as have still a
considerable part of their superstructure preserved, the features are quite
different for those of the oldest extant stupas in India.
As
the Stupa with Buddhism was introduced from Northern India, it is reasonable to
assume that the oldest relic shrines of Sri Lanka were similar to those of the
early Buddhist period in India. And fortunately among the latter a few are
sufficiently well preserved to admit of their reconstruction. Moreover, the
sculptures decorating the gateways and railings of the monuments at Sanchi and
Bharhut include a number of bass reliefs representing stupas as they existed in
the second or first century B.C. and the sculptures of Amaravati and Nagarjunikonda
help us to understand what the stupa was like in southern India at a somewhat
later date. With the help of these and the actual remains, archeologists have
been able to reconstruct the architectural features of the ancient Indian
stupas in some detail. The chronicles of Sri Lanka contain numerous incidental
stupas in this Island; and a study of these comparing them with the actual
remain and the has reliefs of India, Tends to confirm the prior assumption date
the Singhalese stupas, in their most ancient form, did not differ from their
Indian prototypes.
The
earliest among the Indian stupas found in a relatively good state of
preservation in the magnificent example of Sanchi which was restored by Sir
John Marshall. According to the story of Mahavamsa, Mahinda probably started
his journey to Sri Lanka from the Vihara of Sanchi. It is therefore, reasonable
to assume that the type of the stupa
which was prevalent in that area was copied by the earliest builders of stupas
in Sri Lanka, or at bust that it had a good deal of influence on the early monuments of the
Island.
From
Fa Hian’s account of the famous Jetavana monastery at Sravasti we find that if
arigmally had seven storeys. The Storey’s were of wooden construction. Fi -Hien
tells us that the monastery contained a central shrine in which was an ancient sandal
wood image of the Buddha which was the first ever made image and all subsequent
ages followed this model. Again there is Xuan Zang description of the
Ti-lo-shi-ka monastery in the ancient kingdom of Magadha. He says that the road
facing the middle gate there were three whereas, above each of which was a
(metal) chhatravali, from which bells were suspended, below the constructed
storey above storey, from the bottom to the stop. The storey’s were surrounded
by railings, and the doors, windows, pillars, beams and stair-cases were all carved (and covered)
with gilt copper in relief, the intervals being highly decorated.
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