Why and how stupas were built

Detail

What a stupa is, and why it was raised

• A stupa is a mound. Inside it were kept relics of the Buddha — bits of his bodily remains, or objects he had used.
• The habit of making mounds over the dead may be older than Buddhism (pre-Buddhist). Buddhism took the old idea and made it its own.
• Because the relic inside was sacred, the whole mound became sacred. People did not worship only the bone or the bowl hidden in the centre. They worshipped the entire stupa as an emblem (a standing symbol) of the Buddha and of Buddhism.
• So a stupa is three things at once:
• a grave — it holds remains,
• a symbol — it stands for the Buddha himself, who is never shown as a human figure in the earliest art,
• a place of ritual — devotees walk around it.

The textual warrants — why Buddhists believed they must build

• Mahaparinibbana Sutta (the Buddhist text on the Buddha's death): the dying Buddha tells his disciple Ananda to raise a thupa (Pali for stupa) "at the four crossroads" — that is, in the open, where roads meet and all kinds of people pass. The stupa was meant to be public, not hidden in a monastery.
• Ashokavadana (a later Buddhist text about Asoka): Asoka distributed the relics of the Buddha to every important town and ordered a stupa to be built over each one.

• Why this matters: relic-sharing turned one burial into many shrines. Buddhism spread along with the relics.

• Dates: the first stupas date to about the 3rd century BCE. By the 2nd century BCE, the stupas at Bharhut, Sanchi and Sarnath were standing.

• The Great Stupa at Sanchi was first built in the 3rd century BCE under the Mauryan emperor Asoka, and is believed to hold ashes of the Buddha [2][3].
• Excavation at Sanchi has produced relic caskets (small containers holding remains) and more than 400 epigraphical records (inscriptions) [2].
• At Amaravati (Andhra Pradesh), the four ayaka platforms (the four projecting ledges on the stupa's drum, each carrying five pillars) yielded seven crystal relic caskets and one ivory casket. Some held bone pieces, pearls, precious stones and gold flowers [4].

How a stupa was built — the parts

• Anda — the solid hemispherical, egg-shaped dome. "Anda" means egg. This is the body of the stupa and hides the relic [5].
• Medhi — the circular terrace or drum on which the dome sits. A railing runs round it. Devotees walk on it clockwise — this walking round is circumambulation (going round and round a sacred thing, keeping it on your right) [5].
• Harmika — a small box-like (cubical) relic chamber sitting on top of the dome [5].
• Yashti — the central pillar rising from the harmika. It stands for the axis of the universe [5].
• Chattra — the triple umbrella carried by the yashti. Three umbrellas were read as the Three Jewels of Buddhism — the Buddha, the dharma (his teaching) and the sangha (the community of monks and nuns) [5].
• Railing and gateways: a heavy stone railing encircles the Sanchi stupa, broken by four gateways (toranas). These are covered with carving — scenes from the Buddha's life, and stories of his earlier births (Jataka-type legends) [2][3].
• Note the building logic: the core was brick or rubble faced with stone; the carved parts were the railings, gateways and drum slabs — the parts a visitor actually touched and saw while walking round.
• Carved railings are the mark of the great early stupas — Bharhut (Madhya Pradesh), Sanchi, and Amaravati (Andhra Pradesh) [5].

Who paid for them — money from above and from below

• The evidence is votive inscriptions — short "gift records" cut into railing pillars, cross-bars and gateway parts, naming the donor of that one piece. Each donor paid for a part, not the whole. This is how huge monuments got built without one single patron.
• Donors recorded:
• Kings — the Satavahanas among them.
• Guilds (associations of craftspeople or traders). The ivory workers financed part of a gateway at Sanchi. The named donors at Sanchi include the ivory workers of Vidisha, and at least one gateway is credited to an ivory carvers' guild [2].
• Hundreds of ordinary lay women and men, who added details about themselves — their place, their occupation, the names of relatives.

• Bhikkhus and bhikkhunis — Buddhist monks and nuns themselves gave money, although they were supposed to own nothing.

• Key takeaway: monumental art was funded from below as much as from above. It was not only royal money.

• Protection today: the Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi were put on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1989 [2][3].

Prelims Hooks

• Text in which the dying Buddha asks Ananda to build a thupa "at the four crossroads" — Mahaparinibbana Sutta.
• Text saying Asoka distributed relics to every important town and had stupas built over them — Ashokavadana.
• Anda = hemispherical dome; medhi = circular terrace/drum; harmika = cubical relic chamber on top; yashti = central pillar; chattra = triple umbrella [5].
• The three umbrellas (chattra) stand for the Three Jewels — Buddha, dharma, sangha [5].
• Stupas standing by the 2nd century BCE: Bharhut, Sanchi, Sarnath. First stupas: 3rd century BCE.
• Great Stupa, Sanchi — built under Asoka, 3rd century BCE; enclosed by a stone railing with four gateways; believed to contain the Buddha's ashes; over 400 inscriptions found [2].
• Ivory workers (of Vidisha) paid for part of a Sanchi gateway [2].
• Amaravati: the four ayaka platforms gave seven crystal + one ivory relic caskets, with bone, pearls and gold flowers inside [4].
• Buddhist Monuments at Sanchi inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage, 1989 [2][3].
• Satavahana kings appear among stupa donors in votive inscriptions.

Mains Points

• Patronage was broad-based, not only royal. Votive inscriptions at stupa sites name kings (Satavahanas), guilds such as the ivory workers of Vidisha, monks and nuns, and hundreds of ordinary lay donors with their place and trade [2]. Use this against the idea that early Indian monumental art was purely a court product — it shows a wide social base, urban craft wealth, and the visibility of women donors.
• Relic distribution was a tool of religious expansion and of political legitimacy. The Ashokavadana account of Asoka sending relics to every important town explains why stupas appear across regions in the 3rd–2nd centuries BCE. Building over a relic linked a ruler to the Buddha and gave the new site instant sanctity.
• The stupa's design serves ritual, and its symbolism is built into the stone. The medhi exists so devotees can circumambulate clockwise; the yashti is the world-axis; the chattra's three umbrellas are the Three Jewels [5]. Architecture, worship and doctrine are one package — a useful link to the later shift towards image-worship and temple forms.
• Continuity and change: an older, possibly pre-Buddhist burial-mound custom was absorbed and given new meaning. Early stupa railings at Bharhut, Sanchi and Amaravati [5] show the Buddha represented by symbols rather than a human figure — the later Gandhara and Mathura schools break from this.