Ven. Kumâra wrote:

>>Sugata - "faring well, happy, having a happy life after death".
>> Frequent epithet of the Buddha.
>
>I too wonder how it should be best translated. Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi uses:
>- Sublime One, in his MN
>- Fortunate One, in his SN
>
>Would be good if we could ask him why?

In the case of 'Sublime One' in the MN this was actually Ven. ~Naa.namoli's
choice. He also used this in his Visuddhimagga trans. In footnote 10 of
chapter VII ~Naa.namoli remarks:

"The following renderings have been adopted for the most widely-used
epithets for the Buddha. 'Tathaagata' (Perfect One -- for definitions see
MA i 45f.), Bhagavant (Blessed One), Sugata (Sublime One). These renderings
do not pretend to literalness. Attempts to be literal here are apt to
produce bizarre or quaint effect, and for that very reason fail to render
what is in the Pali."

I would guess that by 'bizarre or quaint' he had in mind such renderings as
'Well-gone' for Sugata and 'Thus-gone' for Tathaagata. Personally I'm not
much bothered by these renderings. I got accustomed to them when I used to
read Conze's translations of Praj~napaaramiita texts.

Buddhaghosa gives four glosses on Sugata in his Visuddhimagga:

He is called Sugata...
sobhana-gamanattaa -- because of a beautiful manner of going.
sundara.m .thaana.m gatattaa -- because of having gone to a beautiful place.
sammaa gatattaa -- because of having gone rightly.
sammaa gadattaa -- because of enunciating rightly.

(For a fuller treatment of these see Path of Purification VII 33)

and a similar set of four in his commentaries to the Khuddakapaa.tha and
Suttanipaata:

sobhanena gamanena yuttattaa -- because of being conjoined to a beautiful
manner of going.
sobhana.m .thaana.m gatattaa -- because of having gone to a beautiful place.
su.t.thu gatattaa -- because of having gone the best [way].
su.t.thu eva gadattaa -- because of enuciating only the best.


Best wishes,

Robert