Buddhism: Encyclopedia II - Buddhism - What is a Buddha?

Buddhism - What is a Buddha?

The term "Buddha" is a word in ancient Indian languages including Pāli and Sanskrit which means "one who has awakened". It is derived from the verbal root "budh", meaning "to awaken" or "to be enlightened", and "to comprehend". It is written in Devanagari script as Hindi: बुद्ध and pronounced as /bυd-dhə/, where both "d" and "dh" are dentals, and "dh" is an aspirated stop.

The word "Buddha" denotes not just the historical Buddha Shakyamuni or Siddhartha Gautama who lived some 2,500 years ago, but a type of person, of which there have been many throughout the course of time. (As an analogy, the term "president" refers not just to one person, but to everyone who has ever held the office of presidency.) The historical Buddha is one member of the spiritual lineage of Buddhas, which extends beyond history into the past and into the indefinite future.

Shakyamuni Buddha did not generally claim any divine status for himself - although in some Mahayana sutras, he does declare that he is the "god above the gods - superior to all the gods" (Lalitavistara Sutra); he also did not say that he was inspired by a god or gods. He is instead Dharma (Ultimate Truth - variously construed by Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism) made manifest. A Buddha is anyone who has fully awakened to the true nature of existence, liberated himself from the cycle of birth, death and rebirth, has eradicated all negative qualities and developed all positive qualities, possibly including omniscience. (Buddhas do not claim to be omnipotent, unlike the God of Christianity, Islam or Judaism.) All sentient beings can free themselves from suffering as Gautama did, regardless of age, sex, or caste. The Mahayana and Theravada schools of thought differ on whether this includes animals as well; Mayahana Buddhism holds that, despite the incredible difficulties involved, animals can achieve enlightenment. In both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, however, the Buddha is viewed as one who, in past lives, had in fact been born as an animal at various times during his progress through Samsara. But only as a human being was he able to achieve full Awakening (bodhi).

In Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha (transcending his mere physical form) is viewed as a boundless, beginningless and endless being, present in all times and all places, yet beyond the reach of logic or mundane conceptualisation. He is regarded as the very embodiment of ungraspable, eternal yet realisable Dharma - ultimate Truth or "Enlightenment" (bodhi). In essence, all perfect Buddhas are seen by Mahayana Buddhism as One in nature - all are salvational channels or vessels of Dharma.

The principles by which a person can achieve enlightenment are known as the Buddhadharma, or simply—the Dharma, meaning (in this context) "law, doctrine, or truth".

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "What is a Buddha?", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki