The Stupa and Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka

Paper Summary:

This paper analyzes Sri Lanka as a foremost country of Theravada Buddhism with several very important and many more local stupas found in most parts of an officially Buddhist country. It specifically discusses the ongoing importance of stupas in everyday popular Sri Lankan Buddhism and describes the more colloquial meaning and popularity of stupas of different descriptions.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Stupas as Architecture
Popular Buddhism and the Stupa
Symbolism and Stupas
Concluding Discussion

From the Paper:

"One sees that the stupa has terrific and varied significance in Sri Lanka's Theravada Buddhism whether in formal observances as can involve festival times or traveling to very important sites or what occurs locally involving what may be a very small district stupa, perhaps situated near a temple or upon a hill. In the upcountry areas of Sri Lanka, stupas may dot hillsides and with each, however small, having particular importance to someone or to residents of a particular village, rather like the roadside crucifixes or other religious statues one expects to see in Roman Catholic countries and implying the same sense of daily awareness and frequent related observance. There is the same contrast too between Christians viewing art as merely representing a saint or the divine, as opposed to persons who can actively worship an image or attach special powers to it. The smallest of white stupas can remind the Buddhist of how he or she is to live, develop the self, of the example of the Buddha's mind, the helpfulness of veneration. Preparing this paper has been a good exercise in seeing the different levels on which Asian religious phenomena need to be assessed, the understanding of an educated monk in Sri Lanka or a Buddhist historian of antiquities obviously rather different from the homespun understanding of a person who may be a very devout Buddhist citizen. In this sense the stupa offers different kinds of symbolism that can unite diverse members of a philosophical tradition."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Bond, G. The Buddhist Revival in Sri Lanka. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidan, 1992.
• Cook, Elizabeth and the Yeshe De Project editorial team. The Stupa - Sacred Symbol of Enlightenment. Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 1997.
• Dallapiccola, Anna. Ed. The Stupa - its Religious, Historical and Architectural Significance. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1980.
• DeSilva, K.M. "Buddhist Revivalism - Nationalism and Politics in Modern Sri Lanka" in J.W. Bjorkman. Ed. Fundamentalism, Revivalists and Violence in South Asia. New Delhi: Manohar, 1988.
• Gombrich, Richard F. Precepts and Practice - Traditional Buddhism in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

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