A tall, narrow wooden board set up at a grave, inscribed with a posthumous Buddhist name and a mantra. Common in Japanese Buddhist funerary practice.
See also: 板塔婆
An old stupa remains at this temple.
During Obon, we set up a new wooden grave tablet at the grave.
卒塔婆 is the full, more formal term for a Buddhist stupa, while 塔 is the everyday abbreviation used in the same sense.
stupa-shaped stone distance markers along temple approaches
Standard kanji spelling for both the stupa and the wooden grave tablet.
Variant kanji form; 都 replaces 塔.
Kana spelling is common in everyday writing, especially for the grave tablet sense.
Rarely used kanji form.
From Sanskrit stūpa, via Chinese 卒塔婆 (MC *tswot tʰap ba). The reading そとば reflects a historical borrowing. The wooden grave tablet sense developed in Japan as a symbolic representation of a stupa.