When we study how people imagine the world, and how they express it in art, we understand their world-view. Buddhist stupas crowned with special umbrellas indicate Sumeru, the central world axis and the heavens above it, above which sits the Buddha in a formless state after he attained nirvana.

The purpose of the Buddhist life is to attain 'nirvana' (in Sanskrit) or 'nibbana' (in Pali), which is oblivion, freedom from dependent origination whereby there is no sense of self. When there is no sense of self, there is no desire, and where there is no desire, there is no suffering. But, like most people in ancient India, the Buddhist did not believe in binaries and believed that people go through stages. And so there are people who are completely attached to the world and then there is the Buddha who is completely detached from the world and, between the two, there are many grades of people. We get a sense of this gradation when we read the oldest descriptions of the Buddhist mythic universe.