DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.9541#0083
60
BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE.
Book I.
All this will become plainer as we proceed, for we shall find
every Buddhist locality sanctified by the presence of relics, and that
these were worshipped apparently from the hour of the death of the
founder of the religion to the present day. "Were this the place to do
it, it would be interesting to try and trace the path by which, and
the time when, this belief in the efficacy of relics spread towards the
west, and how and when it was first adopted by the early Christian
Church, and became with them as important an element of worship
as with the Buddhists. That would require a volume to itself;
meanwhile, what is more important for our present purpose is the
knowledge that this relic-worship gave rise to the building of these
great dagobas, which are the most important feature of Buddhist
architectural art.
No one can, I fancy, hesitate in believing that the Buddhist
dagoba is the direct descendant of the sepulchral tumulus of the
Turanian races, whether found in Etruria, Lydia, or among the Scyths
of the northern steppes. The Indians, however, never seem to have
buried, but always to have burnt, their dead, and consequently
never, so far as we know, had any tumuli among them. It may be
in consequence of this that the dagobas, even in the earliest times,
took a rounded or domical form, while all the tumuli, from being of
earth, necessarily assumed the form of cones. Not only out of doors,
but in the earliest caves, the forms of dagobas are always rounded ; and
no example of a straight-lined cone covering a dagoba has yet been
discovered. This peculiarity, being so universal, would seem to indi-
cate that thej' had been long in use before the earliest known example,
and that some other material than earth had been employed in
their construction; but we have as yet no hint when the rounded
form was first employed, nor why the conical form of the tumulus
was abandoned when it was refined into a relic shrine. We know,
indeed, from the caves, and from the earliest bas-reliefs, that all the
roofs of the Indians were curvilinear; and if one can fancy a circular
chamber with a domical roof—not in stone, of course—as the original
receptacle of the relic, we may imagine that the form was derived from
this.1
Bhilsa Topes.
The most extensive, and taking it altogether, perhaps the most
interesting, group of topes in India is that known as the Bhilsa
1 Among the lias-reliefs of the Bharhut
tope is one representing just such a
dotnieal roof as this (Woodcut No. 90).
It is not, however, quite easy to make
out its plan, nor to feel sure whether
the object on the altar is a relic, or
whether it may not be some other kind
of offering.
BUDDHIST ARCHITECTURE.
Book I.
All this will become plainer as we proceed, for we shall find
every Buddhist locality sanctified by the presence of relics, and that
these were worshipped apparently from the hour of the death of the
founder of the religion to the present day. "Were this the place to do
it, it would be interesting to try and trace the path by which, and
the time when, this belief in the efficacy of relics spread towards the
west, and how and when it was first adopted by the early Christian
Church, and became with them as important an element of worship
as with the Buddhists. That would require a volume to itself;
meanwhile, what is more important for our present purpose is the
knowledge that this relic-worship gave rise to the building of these
great dagobas, which are the most important feature of Buddhist
architectural art.
No one can, I fancy, hesitate in believing that the Buddhist
dagoba is the direct descendant of the sepulchral tumulus of the
Turanian races, whether found in Etruria, Lydia, or among the Scyths
of the northern steppes. The Indians, however, never seem to have
buried, but always to have burnt, their dead, and consequently
never, so far as we know, had any tumuli among them. It may be
in consequence of this that the dagobas, even in the earliest times,
took a rounded or domical form, while all the tumuli, from being of
earth, necessarily assumed the form of cones. Not only out of doors,
but in the earliest caves, the forms of dagobas are always rounded ; and
no example of a straight-lined cone covering a dagoba has yet been
discovered. This peculiarity, being so universal, would seem to indi-
cate that thej' had been long in use before the earliest known example,
and that some other material than earth had been employed in
their construction; but we have as yet no hint when the rounded
form was first employed, nor why the conical form of the tumulus
was abandoned when it was refined into a relic shrine. We know,
indeed, from the caves, and from the earliest bas-reliefs, that all the
roofs of the Indians were curvilinear; and if one can fancy a circular
chamber with a domical roof—not in stone, of course—as the original
receptacle of the relic, we may imagine that the form was derived from
this.1
Bhilsa Topes.
The most extensive, and taking it altogether, perhaps the most
interesting, group of topes in India is that known as the Bhilsa
1 Among the lias-reliefs of the Bharhut
tope is one representing just such a
dotnieal roof as this (Woodcut No. 90).
It is not, however, quite easy to make
out its plan, nor to feel sure whether
the object on the altar is a relic, or
whether it may not be some other kind
of offering.