Tibetan Buddhism elaborated the stupa's basic form into the chorten, reading each section of the structure from base to summit as a stage on the path to enlightenment rather than treating the monument as a single undifferentiated whole. A stepped square or rectangular base is commonly understood to represent the element earth, the dome above it water, a tapering spire of thirteen discs fire, an umbrella or parasol shape air, and, at the summit, a sun and moon finial representing space and the union of wisdom and method, though specific interpretive traditions and regional schools vary in exactly how they map the elements onto the structure.
Chortens vary considerably in scale, from small votive monuments only a few feet high, often built in large numbers at a single site, to the vast whitewashed chortens that dominate a monastery's skyline. Traditional teaching identifies eight standard forms of chorten, each commemorating a particular event in the historical Buddha's life, from his birth through his death and entry into final nirvana, so that a set of eight chortens built together can function as a physical retelling of the Buddha's biography. Nepalese chortens, most famously the enormous Boudhanath and Swayambhunath stupas in the Kathmandu Valley, share this same underlying vocabulary while developing a distinct regional visual language, including the painted eyes of the Buddha looking out from the dome toward the four cardinal directions.