Provide a path for circumambulation (pradakshina) in the clockwise direction, keeping the sacred object on the right, and enclose it with a railing that separates the sacred ground.
The stupa: a solid mound with a crown
Build the stupa as a solid hemispherical mound (anda) over relics, on a circular terrace (medhi), and crown it with a railed enclosure (harmika) and a mast of parasols (chattra).
Sanchi: Ø ≈ 36.6 m, height ≈ 16.5 m (without the crown)
The stupa descends from the burial mound. After the Buddha’s death his relics were divided and enshrined in mounds, and the emperor Ashoka in the third century BC is said to have redistributed them among many thousands. The stupa has no interior: it is a solid of brick or rubble faced with stone, entered by no one, and worshipped by walking round it. Its parts carry meaning: the anda (egg) as the dome of heaven or the womb of the world, the harmika as the seat of the gods, the parasols as the honour due to a teacher or king, their number rising with rank.
At Sanchi Ashoka’s brick stupa was doubled in size and faced with stone in the second century BC, and its crown restored in the last century from fragments; the model follows the usual reconstruction.
Related rules
Give the monks dwellings of cells round a court with a verandah, a single gateway, and a wall round the whole; add halls for assembly and worship, wells and a bath-house, as they are needed.
Enshrine the relics of a Buddha, like those of a universal king, in a stupa raised where four great roads meet, so that all who pass may honour them.
Let monks and pilgrims raise small stupas for merit close round the great stupa, so that its terrace fills over the centuries with lesser monuments.
Settle the four varṇas in four quarters of the town: Brahmins to the north, Kṣatriyas to the east, Vaiśyas to the south and Śūdras to the west.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The stupa: a solid mound with a crown”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/stupa-anda. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.