[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[L.S. Cousins]

On 17/07/2010 14:20, Artur Karp wrote:

> On --- or, rather, inside his lance?
>
>
> A lot depends on how one translates the verb nidhāpeti. Geiger has:
> "put into", and, considering the meanings of words related to ni-dhā,
> I would translate it similarly. A royal weapon containing a relic (of
> the Buddha) makes for a powerful symbol, linking, metaphorically both,
> the ideal king's and the Buddha's power.
>
Yes, I was thinking in terms of the Mahākapijātaka where what we have is 
a skull encased in gold which is placed on the tip of the lance and set 
before (kuntagge ṭhapetvā purato katvā). Duṭṭhagāmaṇi's relic is 
presumably very small and would naturally be inside a hollow (?) lance. 
Ni-dhā does have associations of depositing a relic.


> What is being described is a royal procession to the holy site of
> Tissamahārāma. This is based upon the model of a royal religious
> procession in a Jātaka story.
>
>
> Yes, it is a royal procession. But its aim is - clearly - to gain
> support of the Tissamahārāma's sangha for the war as planned by the
> king.
>
That is obviously part of its aim. But the king could have gone alone 
for that. Instead he has first assembled the populace. Tissamahārāma was 
the principal centre for pilgrimage within Duṭṭhagāmani's domains. Going 
by the Jātaka parallel we should expect him to worship at the Stūpa 
there. We must surely assume that the Jātaka story was well-known to the 
author of the Mahāvaṃsa.
>
> In that procession a relic is carried in
> front on the royal lance (used as a banner, if you like).
>
>
> There is no mention of it in the text.
>
True, but that is what we should expect from the Jātaka parallel. 
Otherwise you would carry a relic in front on someone's head.
>
>
> But in the Mhv XXVI a stupa is built over the holy lance, and the
> stupa is in turn encircled by a vihara. What comes to mind is an
> attempt to reduce the potential danger inherent in the imbalance
> represented by the symbolic image of the king's power containing
> within itself the power of the Buddha. The problem is solved when the
> image of both the powers is finally enclosed in structures
> representing the power of the Sangha.
>

The ultimate destiny of lance and relic is to be deposited in a cetiya, 
just as in the case of the monkey's skull in the  Jātaka. The issue is 
how it gets there. Nowhere is it stated that it was taken into battle. 
Rather the natural assumption is that it was given at some point to the 
party of accompanying monks.

We should note that all this is part of the foundation legend of the 
cetiya in the Pepper-pod Monastery. That monastery may have had its own 
vaṃsa, bearing in mind that the story of Duṭṭhagāmani is almost entirely 
absent from the much earlier Dīpavaṃsa (c. 400 A.D.). If so, the reason 
for the relic story would be discomfort with the idea of a cetiya simply 
for a royal lance; so a relic has been added to as it  were Buddhicize 
the stūpa.

Lance