---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Artur Karp <karp@uw.edu.pl>
Date: 2014/1/22
Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Visualisation of Buddha/Guru
To: Dipak Durgamohan Bhattacharya <dipak.d2004@gmail.com>


Dear Discutants, 

another locus classicus, re relics and their power to help visualization:

Mahavamsa, XVII, 1-3, relics as :

1. Vutthavasso pavāretvā kattikapuṇṇamāsiyaṃ
Avove'daṃ mahārājaṃ mahāthero mahāmati:

2. "Ciradiṭṭho hi sambuddho satthā no manujādhipa,
Anāthavāsaṃ avasimha, natthi no pūjiyaṃ idha."

3. "Bhāsittha nanu bhante me sambuddho nibbuto" iti.
Āha "dhātusu diṭṭhesu diṭṭho hoti jino" iti.


Wilhelm Geiger's translation:

WHEN the great thera of lofty wisdom, after spending the rain-season (thus), 
had held the pavarana-ceremony, on the full-moon day of the month Kattika, he spoke thus to the king: 
'Long is the time, O lord of men, since we have seen the Sambuddha. 
We lived a life without a master. There is nothing here for us to worship.' And to the question:
'Yet hast thou not told me, sir, that the Sambuddha is passed into nibbana?' 
he answered: 'If we behold the relics we behold the Conqueror.'

And - Bodhi-tree (bodhidruma, bodhivṛkṣa) as a visualization support?

Best, 

Artur Karp
Senior Lecturer in Sanskrit and Pali (ret.)
South Asian Studies Dept.
University of Warsaw
Poland