The Art of Time (continued)

 Once we decide something is valuable, meaningful, or even priceless, what are we to do with it? We don't want everything falling into the hands of private collectors. If the object is a work of art or an object of rare historic value, it might be put in a museum. If it has religious or spiritual significance, it might be placed in a reliquary such as the Chains of Saint Peter held in the Church of Saint Peter in Chains in Rome.

Reliquary containing the Chains of Saint Peter

The Great Stupa of Sanchi

 However not all rare and priceless objects are suitable for so visible a display as the Chains of Saint Peter. In India, when the Buddha died in the 5th century BC, his body was cremated. So what do you do with Buddha ashes? Rare and priceless holy relics though they might be, one could hardly put them on display. Instead his disciples divided them up and carried them to different parts of India where they placed them within stupas. Stupas are a form of reliquary unique to Buddhists and are designed to contain the relics of a saint or holy man. Stupas take many forms and continue to be built by Buddhists around the world to this day. One of the earliest and most famous that we know of is the Great Stupa of Sanchi. This stupa is in the shape of a solid dome representing the universe and is surrounded by four gates marking off the four directions. While this stupa was built some five hundred years after the Buddha's death, it was probably built over an earlier stupa that may actually contain Buddha ashes. When pilgrims visit Sahchi and walk around the stupa, they are symbolically walking around the universe and the Buddha which is at the core.

Tibetan Stupas                               Symbolism of Tibetan stupa

 In Tibet when a Buddhist saint dies, his ashes may also be placed in a stupa. The thing that makes a Tibetan stupa different is that the universe is not symbolized by a dome but by shapes and colors that represent the elements of the universe. As Buddhism spread through China, Korea and Japan, the form of stupas evolved, becoming increasingly vertical in design until resulting in the multistoried pagodas found in those countries today.

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