Elements of Buddhist Iconography c7.1

c7.1

p. 4, l. 27 . . . . . *Manamattakam* is predicated of the anthropomorphic *cetiya* in a pejorative sense because the worshipper may fancy that the Buddha really subsisted or subsists in such a manner, that the Buddha is in some sense “like” the icon. The same danger inheres in the use of verbal symbols; the hearer goes far astray if he thinks that the words depict the principle, on the contrary that they merely point to it, the principle itself is not a thing in any likeness. This is developed at length in the *Laṅkâvatāra Sūtra*, text pp. 194–196, cf. Ch. II, 114 and 118–119, and Ch. III, 74. *Saṃyutta Nikāya*, text I, p. 11, is also very pertinent: “Those who take their stand on what is literally expressed, without comprehending what was expressed, fall into the bondage of mortality; those who understand what was really indicated form no vain concepts of (*na maññati*) him who makes the indication.”