The scriptures of Theravāda Buddhism. Its Vinaya (the monastic discipline) rules on where monasteries may stand and what buildings they may have; the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta of the Dīgha Nikāya tells how the Buddha’s remains are to be honoured with a stupa.
The Vinaya grew as a body of case law: each rule is introduced by the story of the occasion on which the Buddha made it. In the Mahāvagga King Bimbisāra of Magadha looks for a place to give the Buddha and reasons out what a monastery site needs; in the Cullavagga the Buddha allows the monks five kinds of dwelling and, one by one, the doors, windows, walls, cells, verandahs, halls, wells and bath-houses of a monastery.
The Mahāparinibbāna Sutta narrates the Buddha’s last journey and death. Asked how his body should be treated, he answers that it should be honoured like a universal monarch’s: cremated, and the remains enshrined in a stupa at a place where four roads meet.
The texts were first translated into English by T. W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg (Vinaya Texts, 1881–1885) and by T. W. and C. A. F. Rhys Davids (Dialogues of the Buddha, 1899–1921).
The book, part by part
I Mahāvagga I.22: the gift of the Bamboo Grove
Bimbisāra’s reasoning: a place neither too far from the town nor too near, easy to come and go, quiet by night.
II Cullavagga VI: lodgings
The five kinds of dwelling; the parts of a monastery, from cells and verandahs to walls, gatehouses and halls.
III Dīgha Nikāya 16: the Great Passing
The stupa for a Buddha, raised where four roads meet.