The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (1790 page)

 
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(Gk., dwelling near). A geographically designated area having its own church and minister; hence the people and work of that area. From this derives the (usually pejorative) sense of ‘parochial’, being too narrowly or locally concerned.

 
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Paris worth a Mass
:

see
HUGUENOTS
.

 
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(P
li, Sinhalese,
pirit
, from Skt.,
pari
+
tr
to protect). A formula which is to be recited for protection or blessing; the non-canonical collection of such formulae; and the
ritual
at which the collection of this formulae or specific portions thereof are recited. Paritta is a Buddhist healing and blessing rite. Originally adopted to cater to the extrareligious needs of the new converts to Buddhism, both from the
brahmanic
and the non-brahmanic religious followings, it has absorbed into itself many features of the protective, healing, and blessing rites of those religions.
The P
li texts used in the paritta rites form a separate text consisting of twenty-nine
s
tras
of mixed length. While all these belong to different texts of the five
Nik
ya
collections, the majority are associated with individual instances of healing or blessing. All such texts may have been incorporated into a single text after the paritta attained ritual significance.

 
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