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

[Zelders.YH]

Joanna quotes :

>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'.
>'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".'

and comments :

>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:
>Rama??ya (& ?n?ya) (adj.) [grd. of ramati] delightful, pleasing, 
>charming, pleasant, beautiful D i.47 (???y? dosin? ratti, cp. DA 
>i.141); Sn 1013; Mhvs 15, 69 (?); PvA 42, 51 (expln for rucira). As 
>rama?eyya at S i.233. Cp. r?ma?eyya(ka).

That's right.  I just found out that apparently there are two ways to 
spell the word ; 'rama.niiyaa' and 'rama.niiya'. I only checked the 
first spelling.

In response to Jayarava she writes :

>Tried to find the ramaniya (lovely Vesali) one in the 
>mahaparinibbana in DN but failed.

It's PTS edition, p.102, par.3.2.


It's may and the moon is full !

All stay well,
Herman Zelders