Architectural concepts of Buddhist places of worship : an examination of the architectural concepts of Buddhist places of worship in rural and urban settings with special reference to Southern Province

Abstract

The man needed to understand the 'through way of life'. As a result of that several Believes and philosophies came in to practice. Buddhist temples are the places that express Buddhist philosophy in symbolic way. Thus, these places needed particular work of architecture to achieve its reality while conveying its message of philosophy to the human being. So, there are several concepts found in Buddhist temples are used to achieve that the Buddhist philosophy in architectural built forms. Those architectural concepts use to express the meaning of Buddhist philosophy in to the human's mind through the built environment. So, the Buddhist built environment is came into being as outcome of several concepts. Those concepts are stressed need of appropriate environmental qualities. Most of rural areas provides suitable background for achieve these concepts architecturally through the built environment. But due to the unavoidable urbanization and scarcity of lands of the urban settlements create more restrictions while following these concepts to create Buddhist temples. It is same for Southern Province and its suburbs as like as Western Province. Deviations are happened according to the religious philosophy while Generating new built-up environment. But ...still it is followed the same architectural principles sand concepts.