STUMPF, KILIAN. — Jesuit, missionary, born at Würzburg on 14 September 1655, died at Beijing on 24 July 1720.
He entered the Order in 1673 and departed for China in 1694, assigned to the Beijing mission, where he remained
until his death, enjoying great favor with the emperor K'ang-hi, who invited him to accompany him on many journeys and appointed him president of the Tribunal of Mathematicians. As rector of the Jesuit College in Beijing, known as the “Portuguese” College, and especially during the four years (1714–18) in which he was visitor general of Japan and China, he took an active and often predominant part in the passionate discussions of Chinese Rites (v.) and the legation of Cardinal de Tournon. Together with the other fathers, he signed the Brevis relatio concerning the decree of the emperor K'ang-hi of 30 November 1700; in his Compendium actorum Pekinensium 1705-1706, which remained in manuscript, he collected the reports of the legation and his diary. The Informatio pro veritate contra iniquiorem famam sparsam per Sinas (1717), in which he allowed his pen to go beyond the necessary moderation, was placed on the Index in 1720. The Pope wished S. to be recalled from China; but he died before the order reached him.
STŪPA (in Sanskrit; Pali: thūpa, whence tope). — A funerary monument of stone and earth, in the form of a dome, erected to commemorate persons renowned for holiness or social importance. In Buddhism this honor was reserved for the arhat, the “worthy one” who shared in nīrvāṇa (v.).
The thūpa erected over part Buddha (v.), discovered by W. G. Peppé near Piprāva (Tarā) in 1898, was also a dhātugarbha (Pali: dhātugabbha; Sinhalese: dāgaba) because it contained “an urn with relics”; but it is erroneous to use dāgaba in the sense of tope, and vice versa.