Potter sheds, kilns and stupas?

[Peter J. Claus]

Date: November 6, 1997

Indology List
indology at Liverpool.ac.uk

Palaniappan (via Indology List),

I had been following your earlier discussion of holy
men and potters in Tamil and Sanskrit texts, but I have
since forgotten the exact arguement (as I remember it
had more to do with baked brick sizes).

But your more recent message had to do with the
potters' shed as a place where seers stay.  Along these
lines, I seem to remember some suggestions that the
Buddhist stupa derived from some pre-existing
archetectural form.  I don't remember anything about
the sources of this information or even what they said
those forms were (it is a subject far from my field),
but from what I have seen of potters' kilns in India,
they DO look a bit like stupas and are left
'unoccupied' after they have been used for sometime.
Is it possible that kilns could have been precursors of
stupas?  Does anyone on the LIST know anything about
the origin of stupas from the archeological record?
Any references?



Peter J. Claus
fax: (510) 704-9636
pclaus at csuhayward.edu