Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c12.s2.t1.86

c12.s2.t1.86

To this may be added a list of the Jātakas and the historical scenes relating to the Buddha's present life. This provides the epic basis of the religious content of the Stūpa. A Stūpa was a dynamic conception profound and living like the *Tripiṭakas* themselves. It existed when the first Stūpa in memory of the Buddha was raised by his kinsmen at Piprahwa or when Buddha himself had ordained that the "body of the Tathāgata" should be treated as they treat the body of a Chakravartin king and that a Stūpa should be erected to the Tathāgata at four cross-roads. The immortal Devas and the mortal men offer universal adoration in *añjali-mudrā* to the Stūpa which was for all practical purposes the person of the Buddha himself.