Ariyatara Mahastupa, Sathira-Dhammasathan

The Ariyatara Mahastupa (ตารามหาสถูป) stands at Bodhisattva Valley, Sathira-Dhammasathan’s site in Kaeng Krachan, Phetchaburi. Its project page says the late Mae Chee Sansanee Sthirasuta asked her family and students, before she died, to build a stupa honouring Arya Tara, revered in Vajrayana Buddhism as the mother of all buddhas and bodhisattvas in compassion.

The project page calls the design an uddesika chedi, a stupa built as an image. A bronze Arya Tara, 21 metres high, 12 metres across the lap and weighing more than 100 tonnes, sits on the roof of a 21-by-21-metre hall, with the five Buddhas of this aeon enthroned above her head. Sathira-Dhammasathan says the design was inspired by the architecture of tantric, or Vajrayana, Buddhism in Tibet, pared down to essentials, and that its dimensions encode teachings: twelve columns for the twelve links of dependent origination, 84 ventilation panels for the 84,000 sections of the Dhamma.

The hall below serves the community of women practitioners and lay visitors for meditation and chanting. Work began with the casting of the statue in Bangkok in October 2019. The assembled Tara was set on the building in December 2024 and the stupa opened for use on 22 February 2025. In April 2025 the five Buddhas were placed on her crown, with the abbot of Wat Thai Buddhagaya in India presiding, and by October 2025 the interior was nearly finished.