A stupa is a domed religious structure, a megalithic monument examples of which are found throughout South Asia. Stupas (the word means "hair knot" in Sanscrit) were built by Buddhists, and the earliest of them date to the spread of the Buddhist religion in the 3rd century BC. Stupas are not the only type of religious monument constructed by early Buddhists: sanctuaries (griha) and monasteries (vihara) were also prominent. But stupas are the most distinctive of these.
A stupa is generally a solid mound, built primarily to enshrine relics from the Buddha or commemorate important events or places in the life of the Buddha. The size of the form certainly places stupas in a category with megalithic monuments, and it is possible, perhaps likely, that the form was influenced by earlier enormous constructions. In Sri Lanka, the main material used in the construction of stupas is fired clay bricks.
Stupa Form
In Sri Lanka, the stupa form changed over the centuries of its use, beginning with the original Indian form of a solid dome, topped by a square chamber and a spire. Stupa form today varies considerably world wide. The brickwork of all elements in a Sri Lankan stupa are made of solid, high quality brick laid with a thin mortar and waterproofed with a thick plaster layer. Sri Lankan stupas have between one and three cylindrical terraces or basal rings at the bottom. The square chamber is also a solid structure, capped by one or more cylinders with a spire and pinnacle consisting of a minaret and a crystal.
Dating Stupas
When a particular stupa was built is often quite difficult to determine. Many stupas today have been renovated numerous times, during their lifetime of use and then again after several centuries of abandonment, during which time they were often looted for their building materials. Traditionally, stupas have been dated by using broad occupational phases of architectural typologies of associated structures.
Optically stimulated luminescence dating (OSL) has been applied to the bricks from several stupas in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. Scholars tested bricks beneath the top veneer of several stupas in the Anuradhapura hinterlands, and results were presented in Bailiff et al. 2013. The study found that the resulting dates of some of the stupas matched previous phase-dated typologies, while others did not, suggesting that OSL dating may very well assist in finer detailed chronologies at Anuradhapura and elsewhere.
Stupas and the Idea of the Sacred
An interesting paper by O'Sullivan and Young uses the stupa as an example of sacred architecture that should force archaeologists to reconsider their categories of sacred and secular. Stupas were the focus of worship and pilgrimage during ancient Anuradhapura's heyday, but they faded out of importance after that city's destruction in the 11th century AD. Since the 20th century, however, stupas have again become the focus of pilgrimage and religious practices for Buddhists world-wide.
O'Sullivan and Young point out that archaeologists traditionally approach ancient structures as either binary categories of secular/sacred, when actually that category changes over time with the needs of the community.
Preserving the Stupas
Stupas built as early as the 3rd century BC are the focus of important heritage preservation efforts, as described by Ranaweera and Silva. In Anuradhapura, ancient stupas built as early as the 3rd century BC stood abandoned from the 11th century destruction of the city until the turn of the 19th century. Early efforts to rehabilitate the stupas were ill-considered, according to Ranaweera and Silva, and even as recently as 1987, a restoration of the 2nd century BC Mirisaveti stupa resulted in its collapse.
Historically, various kings of Sri Lanka carried out reconstructions, with the earliest on record that of King Prakramabahn, who restored many of the stupas in the 2nd century AD. More recent efforts concentrate on constructing a new veneer over the ancient core, with some embedded beams for support, but leaving the original construction intact.
Sources
This glossary entry is a part of the About.com guide to Shrines and Temples, and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Bailiff IK, Lacey HR, Coningham RAE, Gunawardhana P, Adikari G, Davis CE, Manuel MJ, and Strickland KM. 2013. Luminescence dating of brick stupas: an application to the hinterland of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. Antiquity 87(335):189-201.
O'Sullivan DM, and Young RL. 2012. A world apart? Translating the archaeology of the sacred in the modern world. World Archaeology 44(3):342-358.
Ranaweera M, and Silva G. 2006. Conservation and restoration of ancient stupas in Sri Lanka. Tenth East Asia-Pacific Conference on Structural Engineering and Construction. Bangkok.
