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164
LALITA-LISTARA.
shaft, no doubt, are large; but the yathi need nuv have veçu a som mnendicant's staff, or at least only such a one pro forma; in reality it migist have been an object more like the famous láth or iron pillas of Dohli; perhaps ornamented with jowels and precious stones." (Indian Antiquary,' Vol. X, Nov. 1881, p. 327.)
Doubtless the ordinary meaning of ypshti, is a staff: but according to Wilson it also means "a creeper." (Dictionary, sub vore). Taking a staff to be the radical meaning it would by metonymy stand for the trunk of a tree, and the staff may then well stand for the whole tree. The word aropana, rendere I into "setting up" or "assuming,' comes from the root rul "to grow from seed," "tu grups as a true," " to sow seed.”. The only word used for planting all «"-T northern India, is rohn, whenre roi, &c. It is used in contra. distinction to rip or rorui, " to sow broadcast." The conjecture about "a cerimony indicating the assumption of a high clerical othce (as m the case of : Bishop's atatk or crook)” is duc solely to the familiarity of the varned gentleman with the Europuan idea of the st:T of otlice, but it is not common in India. It is true that among ODO set of the livi is, the Dandis, the assuinption of the dunda, or stadig synonymous with retirement froin worldly life to ascetic mendicanes, au the Daudis do always carry about a thin bnboo Awit as the emblem of their mode of Jile; but there is lite, rally nothing to show. (und we have enough in the literary reinains of the Buddhists to show all the details of their monastic lives, that the ceremony of assuming a stall formed any part of it. The idea of the crook has come from the Biblical metaphor of the whepherd and his tlock, the shepherd holling the crook over his lambs to lead them to the right path. There is no se'l metaphor current among the Buddhists, and to the best of our intormation never was, and it would be futil, therefore, to identify the vathi with the crook, To Europeans the iden of the crook may not, at first sight, strike as inconsistent, but there is nothing but a fancied sitnilitude to support it.
The world is in the singular pumbar in the original, but I have changed it into the plural to make it consonant with the innuingrable islands referr.d to. As in the case of Kantaka a single horse was wautol, and yet twenty thousand colts were produced, so for a single tree required for the sage to sit ander during his meditation a great
| SR No. | 011126 |
| Book Title | Lalit Vistara |
| Original Sutra Author | N/A |
| Author | Rajendralala Mitra |
| Publisher | Asiatic Society |
| Publication Year | 1881 |
| Total Pages | 292 |
| Language | English |
| Classification | Book_English |
| File Size | 18 MB |