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

[jkirk]

Hi Jayarava, 

Yes, I should not have have used the term "art" in the header,
because what I wanted to focus on, as I wrote later, was visual
art in particular (music coming second). 

Interesting text for "lovely"!

Looking up the term for comparison in M.W., one finds the
following glosses:
1 kalyANa mf(%{I4})n. (g. %{bahv-Adi}) beautiful , agreeable RV.
S3Br. &c. ; illustrious , noble , generous ; excellent , virtuous
, good (%{kalyANa} voc. `" good sir "' ; %{kalyANi} , `" good
lady "')  [etc.] 

The etiquette greetings suggest to this anthropologist that the
term kalyana was in popular use, a common or frequently used
term, as imprecise in reference as our term "beautiful". (And how
about the current fad for "sweet", to approve of anything one
finds nice, impressive, wonderful, on and on?)

Yes, let's leave "art" per se aside. If you could, how about
looking up the citation to SN that I posted to find out what were
the other Pali terms used, and maybe talk about those too? These
terms (Bodhi) are: "desirable, lovely, agreeable, pleasing,
sensually enticing, tantalizing." Were any of these kusala and
bhaddaka? (SN, Bhikkhu Bodhi, 118(5) Sakka's Question, p. 1192) 
Tried to find the ramaniya (lovely Vesali) one in the
mahaparinibbana in DN but failed.  The above list from the SN
text obviously are terms that a good monk would avoid or rise
above since they can lead to clinging, but one wonders if any of
them were used elsewhere in an attachment- neutral context.  This
means I need to do more searching, and your help finding the Pali
terms, if you have time and if doable.

Their arrangement in a string suggests that the text writer was
trying to exhaust the terms (vocabulary) of seduction for eye,
ear and mind, and also suggests that Bodhi was translating
distinct terms. However, when we look at glosses from
dictionaries, we find that one term covers a lot of English
terms; so maybe not? 

I'd love to know if that Pali text from SN has distinct terms for
all those listed by Bodhi in the above translation, and any ideas
you might have about them. 

[PS. Came across another translation in Bodhi's SN where a
daughter of someone who visits the Buddha to proclaim her
allegiance to the dhamma is described as "of stunning beauty".
Forgot to mark the page. Hmmmm. Wonder what Pali terms were used
for that one.]

Pedantically yours,
Joanna