Although the Dhamma is one its expressions are many and nowhere is this better illustrated than in that most characteristics of Buddhist monuments the stupas. Some stupas are bulbous and squat while others are slim and spire-like. Some are small and delicate while others are truly gigantic. It is hard to believe that all these stupas evolved from ten prototypes which were probably little more than earthen mounds. Eight of these first stupas enshrined the Buddha’s ashes, one the vessel in which his ashes had been collected in and from which they were measured out, and one the charcoal of the pyre that had consumed his body.
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