|
Page1
WHEN you travel
from Bombay to Delhi, you see near Bhopal the great stupa at Sanchi. It has the shape of a
big hemi- sphere. If you cut a ball into equal halves, each half would be a hemisphere.
A stupa is always built on a grave where some great personality is
buried. Or it may be built over the ashes of a person's body.
Once the Buddha said to his disciple Ananda: "When I
die, bum my body. Build a stupa over the ashes of the body at a place where four streets
meet."
Even before the time of the Buddha, people built stupas
over the remains of great men and women. But after the Buddha, this became a regular
Buddhist practice.
This stupa at Sanchi was built by Emperor, Asoka in memory
of his queen Devi. Asoka became a Buddhist monk after a murderous war he waged in Kalinga.
Author - Dharamsey M. Khatau
|
