STUMPF, KILIAN. - Jesuit, missionary, b. at Würzburg on 14 Sept. 1655, d. at Peking on 24 July 1720.
Having entered the Society in 1673, he left for China in 1694, destined for the Peking mission, where he remained until his death. He was greatly favoured by 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, known as the “Portuguese” College, in Peking, and especially during the four years (1714–18) in which he served as Visitor General for Japan and China, he took an active and often leading part in the heated controversies of the time regarding the Chinese Rites (v.) and the legation of Cardinal de Tournon. He signed, together with the other Fathers, the *Brevis relatio* on the decree of Emperor K'ang-hi of 30 Nov. 1700, and collected in his *Compendium actorum Pekinensium* 1705–1706 (which remains in manuscript) the reports of the legation and his own diary. The *Informatio pro veritate contra iniquiorum famam sparsam per Sinas* (1717), in which he allowed his pen to run beyond the bounds of necessary moderation, was placed on the Index in 1720. The Pope wished to recall Stumpf from China, but he died before the order reached his hands.
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**STOPA** (Sanskrit; Pāli: *thūpa*, from which *tope*). - A sepulchral monument of stones and earth, in the form of a dome, erected to commemorate persons distinguished for sanctity or social importance. In Buddhism this honour was reserved for the arhat, the “worthy one” who has attained nirvāṇa (v.).
The *thūpa* erected over a portion Buddha (v.), discovered by W. G. Peppé near Piprahwa (Tarāi) in 1898, was also a *dhātugarbha* (Pāli: *dhātugabbha*; Singhalese: *dāgaba*), because it contained “an urn with relics,” but it is an error to use *dāgaba* in the sense of *tope* and vice versa.