The Stupa Of Theravada In The Border Of Southwest China And Related Region

The district of Xishuangbannan and Dehong, where the Theravada has been widely spreaded since 14^th century, is located in Yunnan Province of China. As this area is where the complicated culture of Southeast Asia and China has merged, and where the main resident-Tais has a special history, it possesses an unique characteristic in the religion and religion architecture. The main focus of this dissertation is the stupa which concretes all the essence of Buddhism in this area.This dissertation has three main parts: background study, form study and symbol study.The background parts chooses religion, region and ethic group as three wedging points to discuss.As for religion, besides the unique characteristic of Theravada, the effect of Esoteric Buddhism,Hinduism and aboriginal religion were emphasized in profane lever; In the regional part of this article, the area of "Xishuangbannan-north Tailand-east Shans" and "Dehong-north Shans" where the north Chinese culture and south Tais culture merged has a relatively self-governed historical track; As for ethic group, since the Tais was derived from southeast and south China to southeast Asia, it has experienced a culture communication with others and a self culture vicissitude.Because of all the elements mentioned above, the stupa in where this dissertation discusses has been specialized in both religion and region. To discuss the form headstream can help us understand the characterisitic of the stupa by compare. And the stupa in these two areas has difference in form source, type, element and structure because of the geographical location.Stupa is not only existing as an entity, but also existing as a place to hold some religion activities, both of which are connected with the concept of stupa. The essence of all the religion is life and universe, and the stupa is the building to expatiate this essence. From the very beginning when the ceitya and the stupa had a different point to born and death, the stupa has contained the understanding of life and universe, which are the two basic systems of object, behavior and concept of stupa. In the area of Buddhism, different culture has different way to annotate stupa, and different people understand stupa in differernt mettle, world view, aesthete and valuation. They all changed the perceptive structure, appearance structure and content system in unconscious way.In the symbol system of the stupa in this dissertation, people's understanding of life and universe can be reflected by both the entity of stupa and the behavior of stupa.. In the stupa, Theravada, Esoteric Buddhism and aboriginal religion are interlaced, so are human beings and the universe, In the ritual of the stupa, people get an annotation of themselves and the universe, and finally they get peace of their mind and body.