The Discourse about the Great Emancipation

The Fifth Chapter for Recitation
iron, 151 and enclosing it in another iron tub, and putting it on a scented
funeral pyre, they burn the Universal Monarch's body, and they build a
Shrine for the Universal Monarch at the crossroads.
So they act in regard to a Universal Monarch's body, and as they act in
regard to a Universal Monarch's body so should they act in regard to a
Realised One's body, and a Shrine should be made for the Realised One
at the crossroads. Whoever there prepares flowers, incense, or powder,
or worships or establishes confidence in his mind, that will be for their
benefit and happiness for a long time.
* * *
These four (persons), Ānanda, are worthy of a Shrine.
Which four?
1) A Realised One, a Worthy One, a Perfect Sambuddha is worthy of
a Shrine,
2) an Individual Sambuddha is worthy of a Shrine,
151 The Commentary defines iron as gold here: āyasāyā ti sovaṇṇāya,
sovaṇṇañ-hi idha ayasan-ti adhippetaṁ; made of iron means made of gold,
because here gold is meant when iron (is said). It may be, as Rhys-Davids
believes (p. 155 n.4), that iron was not thought of as being a sufficiently
valuable metal by the time the Commentaries were being written. I can find
nowhere else where āyasa is defined as gold, and so let the translation as
iron stand.
150