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.
Asked by Ānanda how his body should be treated, the Buddha answers that it should be treated like a cakravartin’s: wrapped, cremated, and the remains placed in a stupa at a crossroads. The great stupas of the Mauryan and Śuṅga periods turned the instruction into architecture: the railing round the stupa opens by four gateways facing the four quarters, so that the stupa itself stands at the meeting of the world’s roads.
Set a vertical rod at the centre of the levelled site, draw a circle round it, mark where the tip of its shadow crosses the circle before and after noon, and join the two marks: that line runs east–west.
E–W = chord through the morning and afternoon shadow points; N–S ⟂ through its midpoint
The cord stretched along the diagonal of a rectangle produces as much area as the cords along its two sides together; use this to set out right angles and to make squares of any required area.
d² = a² + b²; e.g. cords of 3, 4, 5 or 5, 12, 13 units
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)
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.
Open the railing at the four cardinal points and mark each opening with a torana: two posts carrying three curved architraves with scrolled ends, crowned with Buddhist emblems.
Place the monastery where it is neither too far from the town nor too near: easy to come and go for all who wish to visit, not crowded by day, quiet at night, apart from the noise of people, fit for seclusion.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The stupa where four roads meet”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/stupa-crossroads. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.