Re: budh and vikasana

 

Dear Jim,

This is indeed fascinating. Sadd 1133 is defining the verb budh in terms of jānanaṃ, vikasanaṃ and niddakkhayo.

vikasanaṃ comes from the root vi + kas which means" to open, expand, blossom, bloom; to shīne, be bright, beam (with joy, etc.,), and to spread out, extend, increase."
In other words it seems to capture some of both wake (in the sense of "growth" as per my previous email) and enlightenment in the sense of "shine, be bright."

Now the Tibetan translation of Buddha finally makes sense to me. It is "sangs rgyas" whose etymology I have never understood. sangs means "purified" and rgyas means "expanded", that is vikasana. The Tibetans says the Buddha has purified himself and expanded all his good qualities to their limit. So the Tibetans must have interpreted budh to mean vi + kas, to expand, increase, spread out, as that is the exact definition of the Tibetan verb rgya pa of which rgyas is the past participle: "to grow in size or number, to flourish and hence become larger, greater, more extensive (TIbetan Illuminator dictionary).

Best wishes,

Bryan

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From: "'Jim Anderson' jimanderson.on@... [palistudy]" <palistudy@yahoogroups.com>
To: palistudy@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, December 2, 2014 4:55 PM
Subject: Re: [palistudy] Meaning of "Buddha"?

 

Correction: the "pakasane" below should be "vikasane".

<< I've been looking into the Pali roots budha avagamane and budha bodhane
(and the same in Skt.). According to Sadd budha bodhane has three meanings
but I see that pakasane (one of the meanings) could be further divided into
two (shining and opening out, blossoming). I find it's best to start with
the root when studying a word but there are some problems to be resloved
with the root BUDH before one can go much further. >>

Jim