Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A dome-shaped monument used as a Buddhist or Jainist reliquary or commemorative shrine.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A dome-shaped Buddhist monument, used to house relics of the Lord Buddha.
  • noun A stupe (medicated cloth or sponge).

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Sanskrit stūpaḥ, tuft of hair, crown of the head, summit, stupa.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Sanskrit स्तूप (stūpa).

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Examples

  • The word "stupa" is Sanskrit for "to heap" and this refers to the mound like shape of the earliest stupas.

    The Buddhist Channel 2008

  • Stupa project director, Ian Green, said more Buddhists have moved to Bendigo in recent years to take part in the construction of the two-storey stupa, which is being funded with donations from around the world.

    Dalai Lama Blesses Bendigo Stupa 2007

  • Stupa project director, Ian Green, said more Buddhists have moved to Bendigo in recent years to take part in the construction of the two-storey stupa, which is being funded with donations from around the world.

    Dalai Lama Blesses Bendigo Stupa 2007

  • A stupa is usually a mound consecrated to the Buddha, so that the mud pies mentioned above are a form of stupa.

    Sotoba Komachi 1978

  • The stupa was the same one pictured in his guide book, the same one he had thought of wistfully when he was on the train, and sexual inclinations had not been the entirety of his yearnings there-at least so he wanted to believe.

    An Apostate: Nawin of Thais

  • A stupa is a huge type of shrine and this one happens to be the biggest one in the whole of Asia!!

    TravelPod.com TravelStream? ? Recent Entries at TravelPod.com 2010

  • A stupa is a sacred symbol of Enlightenment and the path to Enlightenment that promotes harmony and peace within our world.

    The Buddhist Channel 2008

  • The 'stupa' being constructed near Noida flyway with a crowd of statues will cost the exchequer Rs 203 crore and there was a budgetary allocation of Rs 294 crore for other parks and statues, the Mayawati government has reportedly told the Supreme Court on 21st August 2009.

    WN.com - Articles related to 3G spectrum bids reach $1.3 bn on 7th day of auction 2010

  • The 'stupa' being constructed near Noida flyway with a crowd of statues will cost the exchequer Rs 203 crore and there was a budgetary allocation of Rs 294 crore for other parks and statues, the Mayawati government has reportedly told the Supreme Court on 21st August

    WN.com - Articles related to 3G spectrum bids reach $1.3 bn on 7th day of auction 2010

  • The 'stupa' being constructed near Noida flyway with a crowd of statues will cost the exchequer Rs 203 crore and there was a budgetary allocation of Rs 294 crore for other parks and statues, the Mayawati government has reportedly told the Supreme Court on 21st August

    WN.com - Articles related to 3G spectrum bids reach $1.3 bn on 7th day of auction 2010

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  • "The first identifiable drawings on the Karakorum Pass, made in the first to third centuries, show a round burial mound, called a stupa, with a ladder reaching up to them. Followers of Buddha, who died circa 400 BCE, walked clockwise around mounds containing his remains. These mounds changed shape over the centuries, becoming taller and more like columns; ultimately they took the form of pagodas in China and Japan. Early Buddhist art did not portray the Buddha, but drawings made in the seventh and eighth centuries depict different scenes in the historical Buddha's life, as well as other buddhas and bodhisattvas, who were believed to have turned back at the moment of attaining nirvana to help their fellow Buddhists still on earth. Zoroastrians, who adhere to the teachings of the Iranian prophet Zarathustra, made other sketches depicting fire altars."

    --Valerie Hansen, The Silk Road: A New History (Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 2012), 30

    December 30, 2016