Bodhisattva


In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, bodhi or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or bodhi in order to compassionately help other individuals reach Buddhahood.
In the Early Buddhist schools, as well as modern Theravāda Buddhism, bodhisattva refers to someone who has made a resolution to become a Buddha and has also received a confirmation or prediction from a living Buddha that this will come to pass. In Theravāda Buddhism, the bodhisattva is mainly seen as an exceptional and rare individual. Only a few select individuals are ultimately able to become bodhisattvas, such as Maitreya.
In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva refers to anyone who has generated bodhicitta, a spontaneous wish and compassionate mind to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. Mahayana bodhisattvas are spiritually heroic persons that work to attain awakening and are driven by a great compassion. These beings are exemplified by important spiritual qualities such as the "four divine abodes" of loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy and equanimity, as well as the various bodhisattva "perfections", which include prajñāpāramitā and skillful means.
Mahāyāna Buddhism generally understands the bodhisattva path as being open to everyone, and Mahāyāna Buddhists encourage all individuals to become bodhisattvas. Spiritually advanced bodhisattvas such as Avalokiteshvara, Maitreya, and Manjushri are also widely venerated across the Mahāyāna Buddhist world and are believed to possess great magical power, which they employ to help all living beings.

Etymology

Bodhisattva is a combination of two Sanskrit words: Bodhi, meaning "awakening" or "enlightenment" and
Sattva, meaning "being", as pertaining to a person who has achieved, or is striving towards, bodhi or Buddhahood. The etymology of the Indic terms bodhisattva and bodhisatta is not fully understood. The term bodhi is uncontroversial and means "awakening" or "enlightenment". The second part of the compound has many possible meanings or derivations, including:
  • Sattva and satta commonly means "living being", "sentient being" or "person" and many modern scholars adopt an interpretation based on this etymology. Examples include: "a sentient or reasonable being, possessing bodhi", "a bodhi-being, i.e. a being destined to attain fullest Enlightenment", "A being seeking for bodhi", "Erleuchtungswesen" , "Weisheitswesen" . This etymology is also supported by the Mahayana Samādhirāja Sūtra, which, however, explains the meaning of the term bodhisattva as "one who admonishes or exhorts all beings."
  • According to Har Dayal, the term bodhi-satta may correspond with the Sanskrit bodhi-sakta which means "one who is devoted to bodhi" or "attached to bodhi". Later, the term may have been wrongly sanskritized to bodhi-satva. Hayal notes that the Sanskrit term sakta means "clung, stuck or attached to, joined or connected with, addicted or devoted to, fond of, intent on". This etymology for satta is supported by some passages in the Early Buddhist Texts. The etymology is also supported by the Pāli commentaries, Jain sources and other modern scholars like Tillman Vetter and Neumann. Another related possibility pointed out by K.R. Norman and others is that satta carries the meaning of śakta, and so bodhisatta means "capable of enlightenment."
  • The Sanskrit term sattva may mean "strength, energy, vigour, power, courage" and therefore, bodhisattva could also mean "one whose energy and power is directed towards bodhi". This reading of sattva is found in Ksemendra's AvadanakalpaIata. Har Dayal supports this reading, noting that the term sattva is "almost certainly related to the Vedic word satvan, which means 'a strong or valiant man, hero, warrior and thus, the term bodhisatta should be interpreted as "heroic being, spiritual warrior."
  • Sattva may also mean spirit, mind, sense, consciousness, or geist. Various Indian commentators like Prajñakaramati interpret the term as a synonym for citta or vyavasāya. Thus, the term bodhisattva could also mean: "one whose mind, intentions, thoughts or wishes are fixed on bodhi". In this sense, this meaning of sattva is similar to the meaning it has in the Yoga-sutras, where it means mind.
  • Tibetan lexicographers translate bodhisattva as byang chub ''sems dpa. In this compound, sems means mind, while dpa means "hero, strong man". Thus, this translation combines two possible etymologies of sattva explained above: as "mind" and as "courageous, hero".
  • Chinese Buddhists generally use the term pusa, a phonetic transcription of the Sanskrit term. However, early Chinese translators sometimes used a meaning translation of the term bodhisattva, which they rendered as mingshi ,'' which means "a person who understands", reading sattva as "man" or "person".
  • In Sanskrit, sattva can mean "essence, nature, true essence", and the Pali satta can mean "substance". Some modern scholars interpret bodhisattva in this light, such as Monier-Williams, who translates the term as "one who has bodhi or perfect wisdom as his essence."

    Early Buddhism

In pre-sectarian Buddhism, the term bodhisatta is used in the early texts to refer to Gautama Buddha in his previous lives and as a young man in his last life, when he was working towards liberation. In the early Buddhist discourses, the Buddha regularly uses the phrase "when I was an unawakened Bodhisatta" to describe his experiences before his attainment of awakening. The early texts which discuss the period before the Buddha's awakening mainly focus on his spiritual development. According to Bhikkhu Analayo, most of these passages focus on three main themes: "the bodhisattva's overcoming of unwholesome states of mind, his development of mental tranquillity, and the growth of his insight."
Other early sources like the Acchariyabbhutadhamma-sutta discuss the marvelous qualities of the bodhisattva Gautama in his previous life in Tuṣita heaven. The Pali text focuses on how the bodhisattva was endowed with mindfulness and clear comprehension while living in Tuṣita, while the Chinese source states that his lifespan, appearance, and glory was greater than all the devas. These sources also discuss various miracles which accompanied the bodhisattva's conception and birth, most famously, his taking seven steps and proclaiming that this was his last life. The Chinese source also states that while living as a monk under the Buddha Kāśyapa he "made his initial vow to Buddhahood practicing the holy life."
Another early source that discusses the qualities of bodhisattvas is the Mahāpadāna sutta. This text discusses bodhisattva qualities in the context of six previous Buddhas who lived long ago, such as Buddha Vipaśyī. Yet another important element of the bodhisattva doctrine, the prediction of someone's future Buddhahood, is found in another Chinese early Buddhist text, the Discourse on an Explanation about the Past. In this discourse, a monk named Maitreya aspires to become a Buddha in the future and the Buddha then predicts that Maitreya will become a Buddha in the future Other discourses found in the Ekottarika-āgama present the "bodhisattva Maitreya" as an example figure and one sutra in this collection also discuss how the Buddha taught the bodhisattva path of the six perfections to Maitreya.
'Bodhisatta' may also connote a being who is "bound for enlightenment", in other words, a person whose aim is to become fully enlightened. In the Pāli canon, the Bodhisatta is also described as someone who is still subject to birth, illness, death, sorrow, defilement, and delusion. According to the Theravāda monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, while all the Buddhist traditions agree that to attain Buddhahood, one must "make a deliberate resolution" and fulfill the spiritual perfections as a bodhisattva, the actual bodhisattva path is not taught in the earliest strata of Buddhist texts such as the Pali Nikayas which instead focus on the ideal of the arahant.
The oldest known story about how Gautama Buddha becomes a bodhisattva is the story of his encounter with the previous Buddha, Dīpankara. During this encounter, a previous incarnation of Gautama, variously named Sumedha, Megha, or Sumati offers five blue lotuses and spreads out his hair or entire body for Dīpankara to walk on, resolving to one day become a Buddha. Dīpankara then confirms that they will attain Buddhahood. Early Buddhist authors saw this story as indicating that the making of a resolution in the presence of a living Buddha and his prediction/confirmation of one's future Buddhahood was necessary to become a bodhisattva. According to Drewes, "all known models of the path to Buddhahood developed from this basic understanding."
Stories and teachings on the bodhisattva ideal are found in the various Jataka tale sources, which mainly focus on stories of the past lives of the Sakyamuni. Among the non-Mahayana Nikaya schools, the Jataka literature was likely the main genre that contained bodhisattva teachings. These stories had certainly become an important part of popular Buddhism by the time of the carving of the Bharhut Stupa railings, which contain depictions of around thirty Jataka tales. Thus, it is possible that the bodhisattva ideal was popularized through the telling of Jatakas. Jataka tales contain numerous stories which focus on the past life deeds of Sakyamuni when he was a bodhisattva. These deeds generally express bodhisattva qualities and practices in dramatic ways, and include numerous acts of self-sacrifice.
Apart from Jataka stories related to Sakyamuni, the idea that Metteya, who currently resides in Tuṣita, would become the future Buddha and that this had been predicted by the Buddha Sakyamuni was also an early doctrine related to the bodhisattva ideal. It first appears in the Cakkavattisihanadasutta. According to A. L. Basham, it is also possible that some of the Ashokan edicts reveal knowledge of the bodhisattva ideal. Basham even argues that Ashoka may have considered himself a bodhisattva, as one edict states that he "set out for sambodhi."