Tathāgata: Difference between revisions
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Using this word as his preferred personal appellation, the Buddha of the [[Pali canon|scriptures]] is always reported as saying, "The Tathagata such and such...," instead of ever using the pronouns ''me'', ''I'' or ''myself.'' This serves to emphasize by implication that the words are uttered by one who has transcended the human condition, and is beyond the otherwise endless cycle of [[Rebirth (Buddhism)|rebirth]], beyond all [[death]] and dying, beyond all [[dukkha|suffering]]. The Tathagata, in other words, is beyond all coming and going. |
Using this word as his preferred personal appellation, the Buddha of the [[Pali canon|scriptures]] is always reported as saying, "The Tathagata such and such...," instead of ever using the pronouns ''me'', ''I'' or ''myself.'' This serves to emphasize by implication that the words are uttered by one who has transcended the human condition, and is beyond the otherwise endless cycle of [[Rebirth (Buddhism)|rebirth]], beyond all [[death]] and dying, beyond all [[dukkha|suffering]]. The Tathagata, in other words, is beyond all coming and going. |
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Even so, Shakyamuni Buddha in the [[Diamond or Vajracutter Sutra]] pointed beyond himself by saying that s/he -the Tathagata- had five eyes: the human eye as well as the divine eye, the eye of insight, the eye of transcendent wisdom and the Buddha eye.<ref>[http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/clubs/buddhism/sutras/diamond1.html The Vajracchedika Prajnaparamita Sutra, see 18] taken from the site of Plumvillage</ref> |
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==Etymology & interpretation== |
==Etymology & interpretation== |
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Revision as of 06:04, 2 January 2009
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Tathāgata (pronounced: taht-āhgatah) in Pali and Sanskrit (Chin., Jpn.: 如来) means, confusingly perhaps, both one who has thus gone (Tathā-gata) and one who has thus come (Tathā-āgata). Others assert that the name means one who has found the truth. It is the name the historical Buddha uses when referring to himself.[1]
Using this word as his preferred personal appellation, the Buddha of the scriptures is always reported as saying, "The Tathagata such and such...," instead of ever using the pronouns me, I or myself. This serves to emphasize by implication that the words are uttered by one who has transcended the human condition, and is beyond the otherwise endless cycle of rebirth, beyond all death and dying, beyond all suffering. The Tathagata, in other words, is beyond all coming and going.
Etymology & interpretation
Sanskrit grammar offers two possibilities for breaking up the compound: either Tathā and āgata or Tathā and gata. Tathā means thus in Sanskrit and Pali, and Buddhist thought takes this to refer to what is called reality as-it-is (Yathā-bhūta). This reality is also referred to as thusness or suchness (tathatā) indicating simply that it (reality) is what it is. A Buddha or Arhat is defined as someone who 'knows and sees reality as-it-is' (yathā bhūta ñāna dassana). Gata is the past passive participle of the verbal root gam (going, traveling). Āgata adds the verbal prefix Ā which gives the meaning “come, arrival, gone-unto”. Thus in this interpretation Tathāgata means literally either, “The one who has gone to suchness” or, "The one who has arrived at suchness".
In the Dhammapada, the actions of an arahant are described as without trace (ananuvejja) or 'trackless (apada), like the birds in the sky' (ākāse'va sakuntānam gati tesam durannayā ).[2] Similarly in the Mahabharata there is a verse which says, "Just as the footprint of birds flying in the sky and of fish swimming in the water may not be seen, so is the going of those who have realised the truth (tathā jñānavidam gatih).[3]
The term Tathāgata evokes this indefinable, ineffable quality of one who has arrived at the truth. It serves to say the unsayable. As the Buddhist writer Alan Watts once put it, "I'm in the business of effing the ineffable."[4]
See also
References
- ^ Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary, 4th ed. Buddhist Publication Society, 1980.
- ^ Dhammapada, verse 92
- ^ Śāntiparva, 181,12.
- ^ The inneffable
