The Great Stupa of Boudhanath is a protective, purificaton and wish-granting stupa. But further, because of its antiquity - its origins beyond the recall of folk memory its foundation and fabric impregnated with the vibration of innumerable generations of devoted worship and powerful meditation, its awesome size and unique form, and its basis in myth and legend, it inspires vast devotion and has become one of the most significant objects of worship in the Buddhist universe. In myth the Great Stupa is said to contain the relics of the Buddha of the previous 'on, Mahakasyapa Buddha, and thus it is also a reliquary stupa.

Boudhanath The Great Stupa, Keith Dowman, Footprint, $9.00

Keith Dowman has spent the last twenty years in India and Nepal. He has been educated in the theory and practice of Tibetan Buddhism by eminent Lamas of Several Tibetan schools, and has translated several major Tibetan texts into English. He now lives with his family in Kathmandu, where he continues to explore the Tibetan tradition and to interpret it for people in the West.

	Contents: The Great Stupa of BOUDHANATH
	MYTH AND LEGEND	5
	BOUDHA: ONE OF THE EIGHT GREAT CREMATION GROUNDS	8
	HISTORY OF BOUDHANATH	9
	SYMBOLISM OF THE STUPA	18
	DESCRIPTION OF THE SITE	20
	WORSHIP	27
	FESTIVALS	29
	MONASTERIES AROUND THE STUPA	31
	ABOUT THE TIBETAN TEST OF 'THE LEGEND'	32
	TRANSLATION OF 'THE LEGEND OF THE GREAT STUPA'	34