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| Buddhist pyramid, Fo Guang Shan Buddha Memorial Center, Taiwan (Zosoiv71/flickr.com) |
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| Close up of steps as in ancient Mexico |
A stupa, dagaba, or pagoda is an elaborate reliquary, a Buddhist burial mound, often the center of a temple complex.
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| Pyramid (thailand-delights.com) |
It holds holy relics (that of the Buddha, a great arhat, or a famous teacher).
Its dimensions and proportions are symbolic, geometrically representing the shape of the cosmos or this "world-system" (galaxy?) as a mandala in concentric circles, squares, walls, spaces, and levels.
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| Thai Buddhist temple (Ska09/flickr) |
Although traditional
stupas from Afghanistan (formerly on the northwestern frontier of ancient India in a region known as Gandhara) down to Sri Lanka (the teardrop Buddhist island off the southern tip of India) are milky white and
breast- or
bell- shaped, they are also found on pyramidal bases as shown here.
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| Stupa (yasithaishanthaphotography/flickr) |
The more elaborate they have become, the more they appear to be pyramids -- likely in function (mysterious energy generation) as well as aesthetics, which must stand out to hovering spacecraft (vimanas) operated by "shining beings" from space (akasha devas), whose emanations are such to light up an entire grove.
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| Pyramidal base with steps -- similar to those the devas helped the Aztecs and Olmecs build in ancient Mexico at Teotihuacan -- Borobudur, Java, Indonesia (Shubh M. Singh/flickr.com) |
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| Bells (TrevThompson/flickr) |
The largest and most elaborate stupa sits at the center of the largest Buddhist temple complex yet discovered at Borobudur in Java, Indonesia.
It runs a close second to one in the jungles of Cambodia known as Angkor Wat, "the Temple at Angkor." This was once the center of the city of Angkor with a million inhabitants and a very complex water-distribution system, the jewel of the ancient Khmer empire.
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| Angkor Wat (Alexey Stiop/livescience com) |
Its suburbs sprawled 150 square miles (400 km²) into the Southeast Asian jungle with ornate bas relief covering the stone walls with Hindu and Buddhist imagery of space nymphs, devas (light beings), yakshas (ogres), and very significantly nagas (reptilians, flying serpents). Its obsession with the latter seems to have precipitated its downfall, much as happened in the jungles of Central America with their stone monoliths and Mesoamerican pyramids.
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| Bell/breast-like dagoba, Thanthirimale, Sri Lanka (Dev Wijewardane) |
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| One explanatory diagram (zhaxizhuoma.net) |
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