Movement
Buddhist Architecture
Explore in the Atlas →The vast body of sacred building associated with Buddhism, originating in the Indian subcontinent around the 5th-3rd centuries BCE and spreading across Asia. Its core forms are the stupa (a domed reliquary mound, propagated by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka), the vihara (monastery) and the chaitya (prayer hall), which evolved into temples, East Asian pagodas and Tibetan chortens. The 9th-century Borobudur in Java fuses stupa, temple-mountain and mandala into a single pilgrimage monument.
Ritual Memory
Details
- Origin
- Indian subcontinent (spread across Asia)
Classifications
- Holder
- Communal intergenerational
- Source of authority
- Revelation cosmologyAncestry
- Subject
- More than human
- Cosmological orientation
- MandalaAxis mundi
- Degree of codification
- Pattern based
- Mode of transmission
- ApprenticeshipOral song embodied
- Knowledge type
- Relational embodied
- Epistemic cluster
- South asianCross cultural cosmological
Connections
- influenced Stepwell Architecture
Referenced by
- Borobudur exemplifies
Sources
- Wikipedia. Buddhist architecture. Wikipedia, 2024.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica. Borobudur. Britannica, 2024.
- Adrian Snodgrass. The Symbolism of the Stupa. Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1985.
- Susan L. Huntington. The Art of Ancient India: Buddhist, Hindu, Jain. Weatherhill, 1985.
Cite this entry
First published May 2026Last revised Jul 2026
CLAD. "Buddhist Architecture." Atlas of Architectural Thought. CLAD, 2026. https://www.cl-ad.com.au/research/atlas/movement/buddhist-architecture/. Accessed July 17, 2026.