STUPAS.
The chief purpose for which stupas were erected by the Buddhists was to serve as monuments enclosing relics of the Buddha, or of Buddhist saints, which were placed in a reliquary and deposited in a stone coffer, over which the stupa was built. Some, however, contained no relics but were merely commemorative of important events in the life of the Buddha. When they contained relics, the shrine was called a dhatugarbha (Pali dhatugabbho; Sinhalese dagaba) and as most stupas were erected over relics (dhatu), the wool structure came to be known as a dagaba. At the present day, stupa or dagaba i is a name common to each kind of tumulus, whether it be the solid rock-cut memorial dedicated to the Supreme Being, or the masonry mound enclosing relics of the Buddha. The earliest Buddhist stupas were low circular brick and plaster mounds resembling in outline their humble prototypes of the prehistoric period. But as time went on and the building arts progressed, the relative height increased. In this manner the age of a supa may be determined approximately from its shape and height, the earliest being a simple hemisphere resting on a low drum, and the latest a lofty bell-shaped brick structure standing on a many-terraced platform of large dimensions, like those in the Far East.
Unlike the stupas of Northern India which were usually built of solid brick-work, those discovered at Nagarjunakonda are constructed in the form of a wheel on plan, with hub, spokes and tyre all complete and executed in brick. The open spaces between the radiating walls forming the spokes being filled in with earth before the outer brick casing of the stupa was built up and the dome closed. In section, the curved brick walls forming the spokes of the wheel must have appeared in much the same manner as the spokes of a giant umbrella executed in brickwork. Thus on plan, the stupa was in the form of wheel, but in section, its construction resembled that of an umbrella. These stupas were of all sizes from small mounds 20 feet in diameter to large buildings like the Great Stupa 106 feet in diameter. The nature of their internal construction is shown in Plate XII. In the smaller stupas the central pillar forming the hub of the wheel was sometimes square on plan, but in the larger stupas it was usually circular like the staff of an umbrella which it seems to have been purposely designed to resemble[1]. The stupas were built of large bricks (20 in.x10 in.x3 in.) laid in mud mortar, When complete, they were covered with plaster from top to bottom and most of the exterior decoration was executed in that material. The dome rested on a drum or circular platform from 3 to 5 feet in height according to the size of the stupa. At the four cardinal points, a rectangular platform the same height as the drum, projected outwards and served as an altar or table for the floral offerings presented to the shrine by pious worshippers. This is a very important feature of the Andhra stupas and is unknown in Northern India, in the larger and more important stupas each platform supported a group of five stone pillars, which in the inscriptions are called dyaka-pillars, but the platforms on which the pillars stand are not mentioned in the inscriptions, so for the
- ↑ See the Story of the Stupa, by A. H. Longhurst, published by the Government Printer, Ceylon, in 1936, Price Rs. 2.
