[Buddha-l] beauty--or art-- (?) and the restraint of the senses

[jkirk]

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From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of Zelders.YH
Sent: Wednesday, May 06, 2009 6:54 PM
To: buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] beauty--or art-- (?) and the restraint of the senses


Erik writes "The Buddha once made a remark about the beauty of a city (was it Kapilavastu?), so the enlightened gaze is sensitive to esthetics".

My guess is that Erik has a passage in the Mahaaparinibbaana Sutta in mind. It is about Vesali. It says there :
"rama.niiyaa aananda vesaalii", (excuse my ugly Velthuis-transliteration).
The question is what is meant here by 'rama.niiyaa'.

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You wrote:

'The online PTS Pali-English dictionary has no record (!) of the use of 'rama.niiyaa' in the passage in the Mahaaparinibbaana Sutta. and only gives the meaning 'lovely' for 'rama.niiyaa' in a poetic sentence "lovely is the moonlight night".' 

I looked up and found the following with several source citations, but alas I only recognised one source (Mhvs), guessing Mahavamasa. 
Here is the entry--we can see several glosses in English for the term ramaniya:

Ramaṇīya (& ˚nīya) (adj.) [grd. of ramati] delightful, pleasing, charming, pleasant, beautiful D i.47 (˚ṇīyā dosinā ratti, cp. DA i.141); Sn 1013; Mhvs 15, 69 (ṇ); PvA 42, 51 (expln for rucira). As ramaṇeyya at S i.233. Cp. rāmaṇeyya(ka).

I'd guess that you were right to think the Buddha was saying that Vesali was pleasant (i.e., conducive?) with reference to the place as a location for the sangha and for practice. 

As Dorje pointed out, clinging  could be inspired by forms "cognizable by the eye...sounds cognizable by the ear...mental phenomena cognizable by the mind," that can be "desirable, lovely, agreeable, pleasing, sensually enticing, tantalizing." (SN, Bhikkhu Boddi, 118(5) Sakka's Question, p. 1192). I of course have no idea what the Pali terms are for these English terms. Maybe someone can find and discuss them for us. The Buddha is shown to be aware of beauty, but to warn against it as a cause of dependency and clinging. 

Joanna
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