Stūpas (Shrines for Devotion)

After this brief treatment of Rock-cut Architecture from a synthetic standpoint where manuals and monuments, both have been given equal prominence, some remarks are called for here and now on the Stūpa Architecture as well. As already pointed out that the Indian rock-cut architecture is predominantly Buddhist and Stūpa-architecture is cent percent Buddhist it, therefore, has to be examined in alliance with the rock-cut. Any sacred architecture of the post-Vedic period is fundamentally influenced by the motif of mountains. Caves and mountains have provided the shapes and the forms, to put it in one word, the prototypes for the formative evolution of the Prāsādas and Vimānas. If Hindu Temple is the grand Icon of the Supernal Man (“prāsādaṃ puruṣaṃ matvā pūjayet”),—Buddhist Stūpa is not lesser than it. It is a sacred structure akin to a mountain-temple to enshrine not the deity but the relics of that great Buddhist deity who was all against deification. If caves go with mountains, the cave-temples should also go with the Stūpas, the mountain-temples and the Buddhist architecture has a very rich heritage in this splendid side-branch of Indian Architecture. The Stūpa monuments at the renowned sites of Sanchi Barhut, Amaravati etc. arc a superb legacy of Indian art and a brief purview is called for.

The earlier structure of a stūpa used to be formed by bricks which in the Vedic symbolism were the body of the sacrifice, later on the stone took the place of bricks. Thus the substances (the materials etc.) and the symbolism of the Buddhist stūpa and the Hindu temple are identical. Both are sacred places, shrines for devotion accompanied with respective rituals. Buddhist caitya-halls invariably house a stūpa. Chaitya is derived from citi-this we have already seen. A caitya, in the Buddhist application with reference to a man-made form is the stūpa. Caitya in both the Epics is sacrificial altar. Caitya, Āyatana, Prāsāda and Stūpa, etymologically and originally are piled up seats or altars, sanctuaries in the open and also within an enclosed space (which in the present context is reserved to enshrine a relic). The principal part of a Hindu temple is the garbhagṛha and a Buddhist stūpa too has a garbhagṛha as per no lesser an authoritative sacred book of Buddhists than the Cullabagga VI.33 where Dhātugarbha (dagabbha [dagabha?]) is the stūpa as receptacle of the relics (dhātu) of the Buddha. Prof. Kramrisch has made some illuminating observations (H.T. p. 197—99) where the plan of Hindu Temple and the Buddhist sanctuaries such as in Gandhāra, at Takht-i-Bahai are to all intents and purposes identical. This is about the lay out.

As regards the component parts bearing respective symbolisms we can have some identical manifestations and Prof. Kramisch’s observations in this respect are quoteworthy:

“An indispensible part of the Buddhist Stūpa is the Harmikā, the railing which surrounds its shaft where it emerges from the dome-shaped pile of the monument. This railing is square (caturaśra koṣṭha); it encloses moreover a small pavilion or chapel—similar to that on the Āyakakhambhas and also to the High Temple of a Drāviḍa Prāsāda—where it is not represented in the shape of a solid cube. The part where the shaft of the central pillar of the Stūpa emerges above the Harmikā is called Devatā Kotuva in Ceylon. It is there that the 33 gods reside, in their heavenly world, above the sphere guarded by the Regents of the directions of space. The hierarchy of divine manifestation is thus accommodated in the monument, it is especially located within its vertical axis, the Cosmic Pillar. The Harmikā and Devatā Kotuva are above the expanse of the Stūpa, and are part of as well as surrounding its axis; they exactly correspond in place and function to the 5 Vimānas as High Temples”.

Further she observes:

“The central shaft of the temple holds the divine presence; it is specially manifested on the lowest level, in the womb, the Garbhagṛha, and on the highest level, above the body of the temple. The vertical column of the temple is the cosmic trunk and its quadruple ramifications are the four directions of space in which the Prāsāda has its extension. The vertical column of Prāsāda and Stūpa alike has its prototype in that vertical shaft across the strata of the Vedic altar formed by the naturally perforated. ‘bricks’ the Svayamātṛṇṇā stones, which were placed in the vertical succession above the Golden Puruṣa”.

Further again the closed body of the temple is full of openings not factually but symbolically e.g. ghanadvāras and gavākṣas. In its largest form as exemplified on the Hindu temple, the Gavākṣa is an antifix known as Śukanāsā. It shields the structural opening of the Śikhara or superstructure. Such Nāsās (Nasikā; Kudu) are also repeated horizontally on the kapotālis or cornices; there they had their place, originally, as attic windows, in which form they have figured since the days of Barhut. The so-called “caitya-hall window” of Buddhist Caitya-hall, the “sun window” which is the correct name of the caitya hall window, is of similar purpose with identical implication. It admits the light of the sun which reaches the Caitya or Stūpa at the far end of the hall.

Still further Prof. Kramrisch is our greatest interpreter in regard to the crowning part of a temple, the Āmalaka and that of a Stūpa, the Harmikā. Let us quote her fully:

“The Āmalaka moreover in early Vāstuśāstra is also called ‘Aṇḍa’, the ‘egg’ (see Parts VII p. 273). The interchange of these two images has its background in the ‘Chāndogya Upaniṣad’, III. 19.1: “The sun is Brahman. Such is the teaching; and its exposition is this: In the beginning, this was indeed non-existent; it became existent; it came into being; it became an egg; it lay for the period of one year; it broke open; then came the two halves of the egg shell, one silver, one gold” and Śaṅkarāchārya’s commentary:

“What is emphasized is not the negation of existence (but the absence of differentiation of Name and Form). As a matter of fact, the term ‘sal’, ‘Existent’, is found to be used in the sense of ‘differentiated name and form’ and this differentiation of name and form of the universe is mostly dependent upon the sun.”

The Brahmāṇḍa the ‘world egg’ is the true ‘Dhātugarbha’ and is enshrined as such in the Harmikā or casket above the stūpa. (In this connection it may be possible to see some light thrown also on the corbels or bracket capitals of pillars, etc. where an inverted pyramid composed of tiers (Hīragrahaṇa) rises above the Āmalaka. Their symbolism might be referable to that of the spheres above the sun, from Svarloka upwards. The successive increase in area of the single ‘slabs’ serves a purpose akin to that of a bracket capital on the pillars, where as no such purpose is served by the same shape on top of the Stūpa. The slabs of this inverted pyramid share with the pyramid of slabs of the temple the function of a solid cover.”

With this general introduction to the Stūpa and its affinity with the Hindu Temple let us deal with some more famous stūpas of Indian architecture, our sublime architectural heritage. Emperor Asoka is the founder of Buddhist art as beginnings of Buddhitst art of which pillars and stūpas were the first specimens are credited to the Mauryan age. It was however left to Śuṅgas and Āndhras to contribute to the exuberance of the artistic creations in the domain of stupa-architecture, its many-sided architectural evolutions and ornamentation with very rich sculptures. Asokan art was fundamentally religious. Under the Śuṅgas and Āndhras, it naturally followed the same course as the religion, there being a static interval between the cessation of the autocratic art of Ashoka and the beginning of the new or hierarchic phase.

Percy Brown has succinctly defined the architecture of the period:

“Of the many places in his dominions that the Mauryan Emperor had consecrated by the erection of stūpas, a certain number from various causes had been invested with special sanctity and importance. Although through the imposing monolithic pillars raised in the vicinity of several of these shrines their sacred character was appreciably augmented, it was to the stūpa, as the symbol of the Buddha, that the pious pilgrims paid their most fervent devotions. At this early date it is fairly clear that these tumuli of brick, endowed as they were with great spiritual significance, were in appearance somewhat uninspiring. They consisted of a masonry hemisphere some 70 feet in diameter and about 35 feet high, solidly constructed of large unburnt bricks each of which averaged the large size of 16 ins. 10 ins. 3 ins. In the centre of this domical mound or aṇḍa (egg) a small space was usually left for a receptacle containing a relic of the Buddha and on the summit as a mark of dignity was raised a wooden parasol (chhattrayashti [chattrayaṣṭi?]). This honorific umbrella was in some instances, as in the stupas at Sarnath and Sanchi, made of polished stone fashioned by the sculptors of the Asokan school, as fragments of these have been preserved. The brickwork surface of the dome was finished off with a thick layer of plaster, in which at intervals recesses were left for the reception of small lamps to be lit on festival occasions. Over all a certain amount of colour and gilding was applied, and it was also the custom to furnish them with festoons of flowers and drapery together with banners and flags. As the Buddhist ritual consisted of circumambulating the stupa, a processional passage (pradakshina patha) was provided by enclosing the monument within a wooden railing (vedica) leaving a space for promenading with an entrance at each of the cardinal points. At least one of these stupas, very much in the state described above, still survives, appearing as a rough white-washed mound rather incongruously set amidst an aggregation of later and more finished artistic accessories. Such is that at the shrine of Shwayambhu Nath in Nepal, which has been continuously worshipped for over two thousand years”.

This definition fully corroborates our standpoint from which we have viewed the affinity of the Buddhists Stūpa with the Hindu Temple. It may be pointed out that many of the Asokan stūpas were simply augmented with further elaborations as the case was with those that are situated at Sanchi, Barhut, Buddha Gaya, etc. Many an addition to the existing tumuli were a history of the development of Stūpa-architecture. Railings, Toraṇas or Gateways are a subsequent embellishment at Sanchi—cf. the chart appended in Percy Brown’s book. p. 22 which gives a clear story of these augmentations and enrichments at Sanchi, Barhut and Buddha Gaya in the successive periods of Indian history.

This is a bird’s eye view on the northern stūpas. The South also contributed a good number, principally at Jaggayyapeta, Amaravati, Nagarjuni-konda etc etc. cf. Brown p. 48.