Dear Yong Peng.



Thanks for your reply.

Anyway I have some doubts about the translation “enlightened” for the term
Buddha.

For example, in Sanskrit the root of the word “Budh” usually is related with
the meaning of “wake up”, “awake”, etc.

In Sanskrit we have “ushar-budh”, literally, "awakening in the morning” or
more with a recent use “Prabuddha Bharata” as the the name of an
Indian magazine, meaning "Awakened India."

We see too the Sanskrit root “budh” in modern languages, among them also in
Polish, where the root “budh” is present in the word “o-bud-zic-sie” what
means exactly “to wake up”, and in the word “przebudzony”, wich means “the
awaken one”. Also in Russian we find the word “pro-bud-itsa” meaning “to
wake up” (in the morning) wich comes from the Sanskrit root “budh”.



Also we can find later commentaries by Indian Buddhist masters as the
Vajravidaarana-dhaara.nii where Jnanarajra writes:



“Regarding the term “Buddha”, having purified all the hindrances of
corruption and the knowable, he has awakened (Buddha) from the sleep of
ignorance (avidya), for wich reason he is called “awakened” (Buddha). He is
like a person awakened from sleep. Regarding the term “vibuddha”, his
knowledge (jnana) has been expanded (vibuddha) to all the knowable, for wich
reason he is called “expanded (vibuddha). He is like the expanded (or,
full-blown) kumuda flower. He has the perfection of purification and of
knowledge.”



If you ask a Sanskrit pandit what this means, he will probably refer you to
the Paniniya-dhatu-kosa, which gives a one-word meaning for each verb root.
For “buddh”, it gives “avagamana”. The basic meaning of avagamana is
“realization”. The word Buddha is a past passive participle made from the
verb root buddh, usually yielding English words ending in “-ed”. So it
means, if we follow the gloss, avagamana, “realized”. But a gloss is not
identical to the word it is glossing. Moreover, there are not on-on-one
correspondences between Sanskrit and English and words. The English word
“realized”, for example, translates many Sanskrit words besides avagamana
and similarly, avagamana can be translated by other English words besides
“realization”, such as “understanding”.



In the Buddhist scriptures in Tibetan language we have for Buddha:



-Khenpo kunphel’s commentary on the Boddhisatvacharyavatara



“Buddha (awakened and expanded/unfolded) means that he has “awakened” from
the deep sleep of ignorance and that he has completely “unfolded/expanded”
the lotus of wisdom toward all fields of knowledge. As it is said:



Because he has awakened from the sleep of ignorance,

Because he has opened his mind to knowledge,

Beucase Buddha is ‘unfolded/expanded’ like a lotus petal,

Therefore, is he called the Buddha.



- The Treasury which is an Encyclopaedia of Knowledge" by Jamgon Kongtrul



Buddha is given the term “Sangye” in Tibetan because a Buddha has become
both “Sangpa” (Buddha) woken up and “Gyepa” expanded/unfolded.”



The two terms are then commented on by Tibetans as follows: “Sang” means
woken up in the sense that the obscurations have been purified completely
and “Gye” means expanded in the sense that all good qualities have been
developed to their limit.



This are the best references that I have but none of them come from the
early scriptures as the pali kanon.

For that I post the message asking references...



As for the kind answer of Nina, I would like to ask if there is an pali
source for the passage posted regarding the meaning of Buddha from the
Paramatthajotikå?





With many thanks and best wishes,

Gabriel









From: Pali@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Pali@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Ong
Yong Peng
Sent: 09 June 2008 06:55
To: Pali@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Pali] Re: buddha



Dear Gabriel, Nina, Tapkina and friends,

it would be good if a new topic is started on a new thread, instead of
replying to a post on an existing discussion thread.

As for Gabriel's question, "Buddha" means the "Enlightened One". It is
one of ten epithets for the Buddha. Other common ones we usually
encounter in the suttas are Bhagavant and Tathagata.

The word buddha is an adjective meaning enlightened. Not long after
his birth, prince Siddhattha was predicted to grow up to be the
universal monarch or the enlightened one (buddha).

metta,
Yong Peng.

--- In Pali@yahoogroups.com <mailto:Pali%40yahoogroups.com> , Gabriel Jaeger
wrote:

Could anyone help me in finding passages in the p�li kanon about the
etymology and meaning of the term �Buddha�?

Is there any mention why and how the prince Siddharta after his
enlightment was called Buddha, and what it was mean by calling him in
this way?





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