cetiya

Updated: July 4, 2026

A little later, in Buddhist times, the Cetiya became a cenotaph or reliquary, generally located near a monastery and surrounded by a passage for reverential circumambulation. Allusions in the Piṭakas also indicate that then as now there were fairs. The early Buddhists thought that though such gatherings were not edifying they might be made so.

Sir Charles Eliot - Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 2