Stone slab · under the tree
Śilāpaṭṭaka
शिलापट्टक
A slab of stone beneath the aśoka tree. In the oldest layer, this is the whole furniture of the assembly.
Where the later texts raise a jewelled lion-throne on a gem dais under three white umbrellas, the canon gives a stone bench in a grove.
Both are worth holding at once. The slab is not a poorer version of the throne; it is what the earliest tradition actually describes, and the throne is what devotion built on top of it.
Measurements and counts
| Attested in | Aupapātika Sūtra |
|---|---|
| Later form | siṃhāsana on a pīṭhikā |
Connected
Dais · at the centre
Pīṭhikā
पीठिका
The dais of many jewels on which the throne stands.
Hemacandra gives a platform of manifold jewels beneath the lion-throne, and a dais of incomparable gems beneath that.
Around it, nine golden thousand-petalled lotuses.
| Material | many jewels |
|---|---|
| Lotuses | nine, golden, thousand-petalled |