However, in another famous episode in the
Mahaparinirvana-sutra,Ananda asks the Buddha what
should be done with his bones after his cremation, and
he tells him that his remains should be gathered up
and placed inside a STUPA(Pali, thupa) built at the in-
tersection of four great roads. There, the Buddha says,
his followers can come to “offer a garland, or scent, or
paint, or make a salutation, or feel serene joy in their
heart, which will be to their benefit and well-being for
a long time” (DN2.142). This clearly sets a different
precedent for worship, one that encourages worship of
the physical objects related to the Buddha as an op-
portunity to honor the departed teacher and to estab-
lish an emotional connection to him. This practice,
called buddhanusmrti(Pali, buddhanusati; recollection
of the Buddha), involves the worshiper in creating
through MEDITATIONa mental image of the Buddha
that can, then, be mentally worshiped. This form of
worship is common in both the THERAVADAand MA-
HAYANAschool traditions.
The great Buddhist ruler AS ́OKA (third century
B.C.E.) is credited with having spread the relics and thus
their worship by dividing the original eight portions
into eighty-four thousand parts and enshrining them
in stupas throughout India. Such relics are often said
to embody the Buddha, and thus are worshiped as ex-
tensions of his person. From at least the third century
B.C.E. relic veneration has been one of the most im-
portant forms of worshiping the Buddha, and it con-
tinues to be at the core of worship in much of the
Buddhist world. In contemporary Sri Lanka, for ex-
ample, the Temple of the Tooth, which houses what is
said to be one of the Buddha’s canines, is visited by
thousands of Buddhists daily and is perhaps the most
important religious structure in the country.
In addition to the worship of the Buddha’s physi-
cal remains, sculptural images are important objects of
worship. Early Buddhism tended to represent the Bud-
dha in iconic forms—via his footprints, an empty
throne, the tree under which he attained enlighten-
ment, the wheel of dharma—in order to emphasize his
physical absence from the world and to prevent his fol-
lowers from grasping on to the person of the Buddha.
At both SAN
CIand Bharhut, two of the earliest IndianWORSHIP
Lotus petals strewn on a sculptural representation of the Buddha’s footprints at Bodh Gaya, site of the Buddha’s enlightenment. © Hul-
ton Archive by Getty Images. Reproduced by permission.