of its philosophy, formed the basis of the symbolism of all the art of India throughout all its subsequent technical modifications.
To return now to the earliest known Indo-Aryan monument—the stūpa; its connection with the Aryan traditions of pre-Buddhist India can be traced both in the Vedic funeral ritual, and in the structure of the stūpa itself.
According to Buddhist tradition, eight different Indo-Aryan tribes built stūpas to contain the remains of the Buddha, while two more were built to preserve the ashes of the funeral pyre, and the iron vessel in which the Blessed One's body had been cremated. We know, from the records of Vedic ritual, that it was the Aryan custom for relatives to collect the fragments of bones of a deceased person from the funeral pyre, and to deposit them in an urn which was subsequently buried in the ground. Among Vedic rites was one called Pitrimedha, or the sacrifice for ancestors, performed when a monument was raised over the funeral urn.[1] The exact character of the monument is not described, but it is clear that the Aryan tribes, in building stūpas to honour the Sākhyan chieftains, were not creating a precedent, but following an ancient Vedic tradition. The Buddhist stūpa, when it was not merely a cenotaph or memorial, was built to contain a funeral urn; the railing, or the enclosure surrounding the sacred relics, was known as the vedikā, the Sanskrit word used for sacrificial ground in Vedic rites; the cross-bar of the rail was called sūchi—another allusion to Vedic ritual, for sūcha means a shoot of the sacred kusha grass, which was spread upon the place of sacrifice. Again, the lofty terrace at the base of the stūpa used as the procession path of the pilgrims was
- ↑ See Barnett's Antiquities of India, p. 151.
