Buddhist Culture and Art - Buddhist Architecture

Buddhist Architecture

Buddhist religious architecture most notably developed in the South Asia in the third century BCE.

Two types of structures are associated with early Buddhism: stupas and viharas. The initial function of a stupa was the veneration and safe-guarding of the relics of the Buddha. The earliest existing example of a stupa is in Sanchi (Madhya Pradesh). In accordance with changes in religious practice, stupas were gradually incorporated into chaitya-grihas (stupa halls). These reached their highpoint in the first century BCE, exemplified by the cave complexes of Ajanta and Ellora (Maharashtra). Viharas were developed to accommodate the growing and increasingly formalised Buddhist monasticism. An existing example is at Nālandā, (Bihar).

Buddhist temples were developed rather later and outside South Asia, where Buddhism gradually declined from the early centuries CE onwards, though an early example is that of the Mahabodhi temple at Bodh Gaya in Bihar.