Buddhist missionaries from the
Mauryan Empire are believed to have been sent by Emperor
Ashoka, including
Bury Chan or
Praya Chanthabury Pasithisak and five
Arahanta monks, who brought
a sacred relic (believed to be the breastbone) of
the Buddha and enshrined it into the
stupa in the 3rd century BC. It was constructed about 4 km from the centre of Vientiane, at the end of Pha That Luang Road, and named accordingly. The stupa was repeatedly plundered by the
Burmese,
Siamese, and Chinese. Pha That Luang was destroyed by the Thai
invasion in 1828. It was not until 1900 that the French restored it to its original design, based on detailed drawings from 1867 by the French architect and explorer
Louis Delaporte. The first attempt to restore it was unsuccessful, and it had to be redesigned and then reconstructed in the 1930s. ==Architecture==