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

[curt]

Perhaps you are looking for an adjective rather than a noun. As in 
"holy" or "sacred" or "religious". In fact the original request was for 
"terms for holy/sacred/religious objects". Especially given that 
original phrasing there's no particular reason to assume that there must 
be a specific noun for "holy objects" - so long as there is an 
equivalent adjective for "holy". Not being a Sanskritist I won't venture 
a Sanskrit equivalent - but it is possible to speak quite broadly of a 
Buddhist "attitude" toward conceptions of "the sacred". In particular 
Buddhism has generally accepted "pre-existing" conceptions of the sacred 
- going back to the Buddha himself. According to tradition the Buddha 
called upon the Earth Goddess to be his "witness" at the moment of his 
enlightenment - and she agreed (and proclaimed her agreement with a 
voice as loud as 100,000 human voices). King Asoka liked to refer to 
himself as "Beloved of the Gods" in his edicts. Chinese, Japanese and 
Korean Buddhists have usually continued to honor and revere and even 
"worship" Deities that long predate the entry of Buddhism into their 
respective countries - and this honor reverence and worship necessarily 
entails respecting the "things" (whether ritual objects or sacred places 
or whatever) that are sacred to those Deities. Also many East Asian 
Buddhist Masters have propounded the idea of harmonizing Buddhism with 
Confucianism and Taoism - explicitly acknowledging that those other 
"Religions" are valid - and that what they hold sacred is also held 
sacred by Buddhists.

This contrasts with certain other Religions, which shall remain 
nameless, that have a bad habit of rejecting the "sacred objects" of 
other Religions - often go much further than simply denying their 
"sacredness" - by considering such objects evil and accursed (and 
probably in need of burning). On the other hand Buddhism generally 
accepts the "sacredness" of things that are sacred to non-Buddhists.

- Curt

Sally McAra wrote:

> Erik wrote:
>
> /for what it's worth, in my experience Tibetans have always been 
> obsessed by stones and buildings and land. So they're good in 
> converting stones. If this is a general Buddhist thing is doubtfull, 
> considering the amount of effort the Buddha himself put into building 
> and statues. Even among Buddhist masters in India the percentage of 
> (free) masons is remarkably low. The Buddha had dicovered that the 
> easiest way to influence peoples minds is to talk to them. Maybe this 
> is an art which has been neglected in Tibetan folklore.;)
> For this reason I think that findign a common name for holy things is 
> extremely difficult, because there is no common concept.
> ----/
> Sally's reply: Thanks Erik for your thoughts, here are my responses....
>
>
> If there is no direct equivalent term or "common concept" to the 
> Tibetan one, that'd be interesting too.
>
> 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.
>
> Perhaps some more background to invite more discussion from the list...
>
> 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.
> 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!
> So, does anyone out there have any suggestions as per my earlier query 
> about this? There must be at least one sanskritist on the list????? 
> I'm really just after a few clues to help my inquiry...
>
> cheers,
> Sally
> (it's a nice spring evening here in New Zealand, nice to see some 
> flowers appearing. I'm off to cycle home. BTW, Any other southern 
> hemisphereans on the list?)
>
>
>
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