The ancient and medieval architecture of India: a study of Indo-Aryan civilisation

THE STUPA

47

memorials
of the
dead associated with the practice of burial

instead of cremation.

It maybe observed that even in the

presentday

thebodyofa Brahmanwho

hastakenthevow

of

aSannydsin

and retired from the world

todevote himself to

a religious

life is not cremated after

death but thrown

into

a

sacred river—the idea being

that it has been made so pure

byspiritualexercisesthatthe

purificatoryrite of cremation is

superfluous. Another

exception to the rule of cremation is

that of a

Hindu victim to small-pox, in which case Sitala,

the dread

goddesswho has possessed the body, is supposed

toclaimitfromAgni,thegodoffire. Probablytheimminent

risk of infectionfor relativeswhose dutyit was to prepare a

corpseforthe funeral pilewasthe motiveofthiscustom.

It seems likelythat the earliest

Aryan immigrants

into

Indiaalsodisposedoftheirdead

byburial,markingthe

grave

withthetumulus,whichafterwards

developedintothe

structural

sttlpa, and

that they

only adopted cremation after they had

settled down to life under

tropical conditions, for obvious

sanitary

reasons.

Certainly in Asoka's time the sttlpa was

generally,likethemodernchattri,onlyacenotaph,orreliquary.

As the purpose of this work is architectural ratherthan

archaeological, itis unnecessary torepeatthe detailed descrip-

tionsofthe

existingremainsofearly

BuddhistandJain

sttipas,

datingfrom

about the fifth centuryB.C., which are given by

Fergusson andotherwriters. Theplan(fig.

9)

andthe

section

of the great Sanchisttlpa(fig.

14)

will indicatethe usualform

andconstruction,andPI. Xtheappearanceofoneofthemfrom

the

outside,asshownintheAmaravatisculptures. Thelatter,

however,representingthedevelopmentofIndo-Aryan

religion

inthesecond orthird centurya.d., belongs to the

Mahiyana

schoolof Buddhism, butthe formandstructure of the sttlpa

and enclosing rail remains

practicallythesameas in Asoka's

time. The chaitya of the

Kdrl^ Chapter-house, PI. XIX,