pagoda, unknown maker from China or Thailand

Exhibition Label:
“The Sacred and the Secular: Buddhist Imagery in Religious and Popular Contexts,” Oct-2005, Hillary Pedersen
Pagodas are structures that evolved from the Indian stupa, or reliquary. Scriptures recount that after the Buddha had passed into final nirvana, his remains were divided into 84,000 parts and distributed to various locations around Asia. In India, the relics were interred in stupas, or large, dome-shaped structures. As Buddhism spread into east Asia, the stupa was combined with native Chinese architectural forms, such as tiled roofs, upswept eaves, elaborate bracketing systems, platformed bases; this was the emergence of a new structure called a pagoda. This miniature pagoda includes small ornate bells on each corner of the roof.