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18-683: Raj Ghat is a memorial complex in Delhi , India . The first memorial was dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi where a black marble platform was raised to mark the spot of his cremation on 31 January 1948 and consists of an eternal flame at one end. Located on Delhi's Ring Road , a stone footpath leads to the walled enclosure that houses the memorial. Later the memorial complex was expanded to include memorials for other prominent Indian leaders including Jawaharlal Nehru , Lal Bahadur Shastri , Indira Gandhi , Rajiv Gandhi , Chandra Shekhar and Atal Bihari Vajpayee . Raj Ghat loosely translates to Royal Steps with

36-405: A black marble platform with an eternal flame at one end. A stone footpath leads to the walled enclosure that houses the memorial. Later the memorial complex was expanded to include several other samadhis for various leaders in the vicinity of Raj Ghat. The landscaping and planting of these memorials were originally performed by Alick Percy-Lancaster, Superintendent of Horticultural operations with

54-469: A burial chamber either wholly above ground or within a burial vault below the superstructure. This contains the body or bodies, probably within sarcophagi or interment niches. Modern mausolea may also act as columbaria (a type of mausoleum for cremated remains) with additional cinerary urn niches. Mausolea may be located in a cemetery , a churchyard or on private land. In the United States ,

72-464: A cemetery can be used for funeral services. Sarcophagus A sarcophagus ( pl. : sarcophagi or sarcophaguses ) is a coffin , most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word sarcophagus comes from the Greek σάρξ sarx meaning "flesh", and φαγεῖν phagein meaning "to eat"; hence sarcophagus means "flesh-eating", from

90-791: The Ancient Greek : μαυσωλεῖον ) derives from the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (near modern-day Bodrum in Turkey), the grave of King Mausolus , the Persian satrap of Caria , whose large tomb was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World . Mausolea were historically, and still may be, large and impressive constructions for a deceased leader or other person of importance. However, smaller mausolea soon became popular with

108-457: The Government of India . In 2000, the Government of India under Vajpayee took a decision to not create separate memorials for different leaders as the already existing memorials were occupying more than 245 acres of prime land in Delhi . The hard materials used in the memorial had raised a few questions about the nature of Gandhian architecture where there is a stark difference between

126-849: The High Middle Ages often had a recumbent tomb effigy lying on the lid. More plain sarcophagi were placed in crypts. The most famous examples include the Habsburg Imperial Crypt in Vienna , Austria. The term tends to be less often used to describe Medieval, Renaissance, and later examples. In the early modern period , lack of space tended to make sarcophagi impractical in churches, but chest tombs or false sarcophagi, empty and usually bottomless cases placed over an underground burial, became popular in outside locations such as cemeteries and churchyards, especially in Britain in

144-585: The gentry and nobility in many countries. In the Roman Empire , these were often in necropoles or along roadsides: the via Appia Antica retains the ruins of many private mausolea for kilometres outside Rome . When Christianity became dominant, mausolea were out of use. Later, mausolea became particularly popular in Europe and its colonies during the early modern and modern periods . A single mausoleum may be permanently sealed. A mausoleum encloses

162-477: The 18th and 19th centuries, where memorials were mostly not highly decorated and the extra cost of a false sarcophagus over a headstone acted as an indication of social status. Sarcophagi, usually "false", made a return to the cemeteries of America during the last quarter of the 19th century, at which time, according to a New York company which built sarcophagi, "it was decidedly the most prevalent of all memorials in our cemeteries". They continued to be popular into

180-588: The 1950s, at which time the popularity of flat memorials (making for easier grounds maintenance) made them obsolete. Nonetheless, a 1952 catalog from the memorial industry still included eight pages of them, broken down into Georgian and Classical detail, a Gothic and Renaissance adaptation, and a Modern variant. The image shows sarcophagi from the late 19th century located in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The one in

198-563: The 3rd dynasty, which reigned from about 2686 to 2613 BC. The Hagia Triada sarcophagus is a stone sarcophagus elaborately painted in fresco ; one style of later Ancient Greek sarcophagus in painted pottery is seen in Klazomenian sarcophagi , produced around the Ionian Greek city of Klazomenai , where most examples were found, between 550 BC (Late Archaic) and 470 BC. They are made of coarse clay in shades of brown to pink. Added to

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216-543: The architecture of Rajghat and a Gandhian low-cost housing architecture. P. V. Narasimha Rao was the ninth Prime minister of India. He died on 24 December 2004 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi. His family wanted the body cremated at Raj ghat in Delhi. In 2015, almost ten years since his death, a memorial was finally erected at Smriti Sthal. Mausoleum The word mausoleum (from

234-529: The back, the Warner Monument created by Alexander Milne Calder (1879), features the spirit or soul of the deceased being released. In the Mekong Delta in southwestern Vietnam, it is common for families to inter their members in sarcophagi near their homes, thus allowing ready access for visits as a part of the indigenous tradition of ancestor worship . In Sulawesi , Indonesia, waruga are

252-520: The basin-like main sarcophagus is a broad, rectangular frame, often covered with a white slip and then painted. The huge Lycian Tomb of Payava , now in the British Museum , is a royal tomb monument of about 360 BC designed for an open-air placing, a grand example of a common Lycian style. Ancient Roman sarcophagi —sometimes metal or plaster as well as limestone —were popular from about the reign of Trajan , and often elaborately carved, until

270-526: The early Christian burial preference for interment underground, often in a limestone sepulchre , led to their falling out of favor. However, there are many important Early Christian sarcophagi from the 3rd to 4th centuries. Most Roman examples were designed to be placed against a wall and are decorated on three sides only. Sarcophagi continued to be used in Christian Europe for important figures, especially rulers and leading church figures, and by

288-431: The phrase lithos sarkophagos ( λίθος σαρκοφάγος ), "flesh-eating stone". The word also came to refer to a particular kind of limestone that was thought to rapidly facilitate the decomposition of the flesh of corpses contained within it due to the chemical properties of the limestone itself. Sarcophagi were most often designed to remain above ground. The earliest stone sarcophagi were used by Egyptian pharaohs of

306-538: The term may be used for a burial vault below a larger facility, such as a church. The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California, for example, has 6,000 sepulchral and cinerary urn spaces for interments in the lower level of the building. It is known as the "crypt mausoleum". In Europe, these underground vaults are sometimes called crypts or catacombs . A chapel mausoleum or mausoleum chapel in

324-644: The word "royal" alluding to the importance of the place and "steps" referencing the climb from the banks of the Yamuna river . Raj Ghat was the name of a location of historic ghat in Shahjahanabad in Old Delhi on the west bank of the Yamuna River east of Daryaganj . The first memorial was dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi on the spot where his remains were cremated on 31 January 1948. It consists of

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