[Buddha-l] RE: seeking the Pali and Sanskrit term for "holy/ religious/, sacred objects"

[L.S. Cousins]

Sally writes:
>But ancient India was full of "holy" objects (consecrated 
>architecture, statues, paintings, stupas etc).
>And the concept of getting darshan from the statue of a god is there 
>too as part of the ancient indic cultural setting.  So I still think 
>it is possible that there is a term that distinguishes religious 
>objects like consecrated statues from everyday things like cooking 
>pots and so on, even if they didn't conceptualise it in the ways the 
>Tibetans did when they got hold of it later. The material culture 
>was there. And is.

Well, perhaps Pali cetiya = Skt caitya has some of what you want. A 
well-known Pali verse offers homage (vandemi) to every kind of cetiya 
and then specifies three kinds:
1. corporeal relics;
2. the Bodhi tree;
3. any Buddharuupa anywhere.

>I am interested here in the fact that people built and still build 
>elaborate and expensive monuments to their religion.... Despite the 
>fact that I don't personally feel that keen on the practice, it is 
>not my place to judge whether or not such things are helpful to 
>people's minds. 
>Perhaps the disinterest in this inquiry is because (a) I am female 
>... (joke, I hope! unless Joanna was right...) and/or (b) the 
>participants in this list have what Gregory Schopen called 
>"Protestant Presuppositions" and reject the idea of relics and other 
>"sacred objects" having any benefit in spiritual practice and thus 
>they simply don't merit discussion.

The latter :-)

>Well, hmm,  I don't notice any real benefits from stupas & relics 
>myself but many people I have interviewed talk about how seeing 
>Buddhist art including stupas inspired them to find out about 
>buddhism, inspired feelings of peace, and I've even heard, during my 
>inquiries, stories from people feeling their meditation practice was 
>given a "boost" by having a reliquary touched on their head, etc... 
>I find all this rather intriguing perhaps *because* I'm skeptical... 
>But I'm not out to knock such practices but rather to try & see it 
>from the participants' point of view!

They do work from time to time.

My impression is that meditation practice alternates between phases 
in which this kind of thing is very important and others in which it 
is either unimportant or even felt as an obstacle. So there is a 
problem if one gets stuck in views about it one way or another.

Lance Cousins