History

It is well known that stupas are older than Buddhist tradition. In prehistoric times they were just a mound, tumuli (Skt.)--a place to bury important kings away from the village. Twenty-five hundred years ago, at the time of Shakyamuni Buddha's death, a change came about in the way stupas were regarded.

The Buddha requested that his relics be placed in a familiar stupa, but with a shift in emphasis. Instead of being just a place of honor where the bones or relics of a cremated king were placed, the stupa was to be located at four corners (i.e., a crossroads), to remind people of the awakened state of mind. So stupas evolved from mounds of dirt (stup, Skt., "to heap up, pile, raise aloft, elevate"), to a king's burial tomb, to a religious monument.

Around the time of the Buddha's death, stupas began to be no longer used as a shrine to the dead, but to honor the living; to remind people far into the future that they, while living, have the seed of enlightenment. A stupa is calling to you, and you are the stupa. Its stability and reverence is based on compassion--to project the mind of the teacher as example, for the benefit of future generations.

A stupa is intended to stop you in your tracks. It is an architectural representation of the entire Buddhist path. The body, speech, and mind of an enlightened teacher is contained therein--a reminder of a timeless quality which one senses in old monuments. The Tibetan word is choten, meaning a receptacle for offerings and implying support for lay people to express devotion and connection to the Buddha mind.

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