This situation was suggested by earlier Megalithic tombs, which had the burial chamber in the middle, and of greater importance was the fact that the whole shape of the stupa would be meaningless unless the earth mound and brick casing were built around this central point. A shift of the ritual center only became possible after the stupa had lost its original significance as a burial mound, during the reign of Ashoka, and had become an interminably repeated symbol of the teaching and cosmology of the Buddha. The Aryan symbol of the axis of the universe, the tree in the middle of the village under which the elders took council, reappears in the stupa as a vertical wooden axis. In so far as mountains are tall, lofty, raising abruptly to meet the Heavens, they form part of the symbolism of transcendence and, in so far as they are often numinous places where the gods have revealed their presence, they share in the symbolism of manifestation. Mountains are places where Heaven and Earth meet, where the gods have their home and human ascension its boundary.
Mountains are both the center and the axis of the world.
The primordial separation of heaven and earth is common to all the creation myths of the world. The center of the world can be constructed anywhere, since one can build a microcosm anywhere in stone or brick. The construction always takes into account the four cardinal directions. The parasol is a symbol of Heaven and as a consequence, the Asia-wide emblem of kingship. It is the regalia of the chakravarti -king, the universal monarch seated at the hub of a wheel.