CHAITYA. SANSK. From Chit, a funeral pile, a heap. Any sacred object worshipped by the Buddhists, as a tree, an altar, a temple, as well as any monument raised on the site of a funeral pile, as a mound or pillar ; and is probably applicable both to the Buddhist chodten, or offering to the deity, and the dungten, a bone or relic receptacle, but is used by the Jains and Buddhists to indi cate a temple containing a chaitya. In Nepal and Tibet, and in Buddhist Sanskrit literature, the word is applied to the model of a stupa placed in the temples, and to which the term dhagoba has been applied. These chaityas or dhagobas are an essential feature of chapels or temples con structed solely for purposes of worship, and to which the term chaitya caves Las been proposed to be applied. The later forms have a privlakshana, or passage for circumambulation. The i,tupa or chaitya of Indian Buddhism are supposed to have been erected subsequent to the cays temples and viharas or monasteries. The chaitya of the Bud
dhists is the ch'hatra of the Brahmans. One chaitya at Sanchi is structural, but all the others known, in number 20 or 30, are cut in the rock. Seem ingly the aisle which surrounded the apse could be lighted from the exterior. The ancient stupa were originally meant as receptacles of either the Buddhas, or the Bodhisattwas and the kings who encouraged the propagation of the Buddhist faith. The chodten or chorten of Tibet are similar to the stupa. They consist of a cylindrical vase, and have a cupola over them. They servo as relic repositories, remains of revered lamas, sacred writings. But they are principally offering recep tacles, and no Tibetan passes by without deposit ing some offering or oblation.—Hardy's Eastern Monachism. p. 43 ; Cunningham's Bhilsa Mpes ; Eery. and Burg. Cave Temples of India.