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The title of Buddha (term Sanskrit buddhā , “waked up”, takes part last liability of the root budh- , “to wake up”), nominates a person, in particular from her wisdom, having carried out the awakening, i.e. reached the Nirvāna (according to the Hinayana), or transcended the duality will samsara /nirvana (according to the Mahayana). It can be indicated by other qualifiers: “Happy” ( baghavat ), “That which overcame” ( Jina ), “Gone-Thus” ( Tathagata )…

Many Buddhas, most known remains the founder of the Bouddhisme, Siddharta Gotama, prototype of the “pure and perfect Buddha” ( samyaskambuddha ).

Origin of the term

The word Buddha is, in Sanskrit, the last Participe passive of the root bhudh ( budh by application of the Loi of Grassmann). One explains the deaspiration budh-your → bud-dha by the Loi of Bartholomae. The root meaning “to wake up”, of the same étymon Indo-European as the old Greek πυνθάνομαι punthánomai “to get information” or than German bieten and English to bid (after major semantic evolutions), inter alia many derivatives in the Indo-European Languages, the term buddha thus means literally “which woke up”. The Western languages have borrowed the Sanskrit term, by adapting it to their orthography ( Bouddha in French, Buddha in English, etc).

The word Sanskrit was transcribed phonetically in Moyen Chinese (to consult this article for more details) by the characters 佛陀, being read then phjut-thwa , currently fótuó , and shortened in 佛 fó . The Japanese borrowed it in the form 仏陀 budda , reading quite as phonetic, often shortened in 仏 (butsu), also pronounced hotoke.

Three types of awakening

Right from the start, the texts pālis distinguish three ways towards the awakening.

Is śrāvakabuddha (Sanskrit; pāli sāvaka-buddha), listener , that which reached the nirvana thanks to the teaching of a Buddha. It is more often called arhat and is not always regarded as a Buddha.
Is pratyekabuddha (Sanskrit, pāli pacekka-buddha), solitary Buddha , that which found the way by itself, but does not have the capacities to release from other beings.
Is Samyaksambuddha (Sanskrit, pāli sammāmsam-buddha), pure and perfect Buddha , that which reached the pure and perfect awakening ( samyaksambodhi ) by itself and has the capacities to teach the Dharma. To reach this awakening requires to follow the career of Bodhisattva.

It is the latter type which generally the term Buddha indicates. The most famous example is the historical Buddha, Sakyamuni, but of others samyaksambuddha is recognized and venerated.

After its nirvāna, a Buddha is freed from any bond (samyojana), but can still be affected by the disease or poisoned; if its body carries thirty-two distinctive marks, it nevertheless consists of four elements and thus perishable. However, certain texts evoke the quasi-invulnerability of the perfect Buddha, result owing to the fact that it evacuated its bad Karma, in particular while sacrificing during many existences of the parts of its body, even its life. The wound inflicted by Devadatta in Shakyamuni is thus interpreted as the sign of a light remainder bad karma.

In Hinayâna

The old Buddhism as well as the Bouddhisme theravâda considers that only rare individuals will borrow the way of the Bodhisattva, whose result is the pure and perfect awakening samyaskambuddha , which makes it possible “to make turn the wheel of the dharma” and to spread the good doctrines in the world. They made the wish of many existences of it before in front of a Buddha of the past. The details of the career of bodhisattva could vary school at school. The Buddhavamsa infinitely describes a process including/understanding three long stages before reaching the existence where the bodhisattva will become Buddha. Having reached the Nirvāna, the Buddha (as the arhat) saw his last existence; death announces the Parinirvana and the total extinction.

Right from the start, Buddhism recognizes, in addition to the Buddha of our era, several Buddhas of last the which preceded it. The Digha Nikaya and the Samyutta Nikaya mention of them six, other texts twenty-four, the Buddhavamsa twenty-seven ; Apadana of the Khuddaka-Nikaya goes until thirty-five. With regard to the Buddhas to come, Maitreya, announced by Gautama itself, is only known faded gun, but of the post-canonical texts like the Dasabodhisattuppattikatha and the Dasabodhisattaddesa nine count some, of which seven are named with their place of residence: Metteyya (Maitreya), Rowed, Pasena, Vibhuti live with the paradise Tusita, Subhuuti, Nalagiri, Parileyya resident with the Tavatimsa paradise.

In Mahâyâna

According to Buddhisms Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, each one can have the ambition to become bodhisattva and the natural of Buddha can be recognized in all the sensitive beings. The Buddha is not strictly speaking any more that which reaches the nirvana, but rather that which transcended the duality will samsara /nirvana. In addition, a Buddha appears under three aspects called the Trikāya:

human appearance registered in the history, called Nirmāṇakāya, “produced body”, only perceived by the human ones;
the “body of pleasure”, Sambhogakāya, perceived by some bodhisattvas;
the Dharmakāya, absolute “body of dharma”, fruit of the most perfect wisdom, nature even of the Buddha, vacuity where the dualities are cancelled.

The first two bodies are only means of teaching had with the compassion.

In Vajrayāna

The Vajrayāna takes again the concepts of the mahāyāna. Moreover, the absolute body is sometimes named there adibuddhā (tib. thogma sangya) or “Buddha car-created” and can constitute a fourth body sahajakāya transcendent, paramount, unchanged and indestructible, without form and action, although it can give place to visible emanations. It is named Vairocana in Buddhism Shingon, Samantabhadra in the oldest school Tibetan (Nyingmapa) and Vajrasattva or Vajradhara in the later currents like Kagyupa or Gelugpa.

The adibouddha generates emanations which generate themselves of other emanations, Buddhas, bodhisattvas, courroucées forms, etc the archetypal model is the group of the Five Buddhas of meditation. The level where is a given figure can vary according to the traditions or the type of tantric practice. Thus, Vairocana, central figure of the group of the five Buddhas, are regarded the supreme adibouddha in the Shingon current, but as an emanation of the adibouddha Samantabhadra or Vajradhara in Buddhism Tibetan.

Cent-douze marks

The body of any Buddha is avoided of thirty-two major marks: for example the feet and the hands carry the representation of a wheel, the sex is hidden in a sheath, the number of teeth is forty. One also counts eighty minor marks, like the well developed sex, the youthful aspect of the body, the hands marked of the symbol which is the Svastika, or a scented hair.

Buddhas

The historical Buddha

Name and dates

The founder of Buddhism is named Siddhartha Gautama; Siddhartha (that which achieved its goal) is given like its personal name, but it is probably about a late nickname. Gautama, attested without question, is probably its family name (gotta), but some see name " there; wire of Gautami" Lady; , of the gotta of that which would have raised it with died of his/her mother. It is still called Gautama Bouddha, or Sakyamuni (wise of the Sakya) because of its membership of this clan. It carries of more than many epithets, like Tathagata, " that which came ainsi" [[the dharma|good Law]]. The title of Buddha was granted to him by its disciples.

The accounts of its life, first of all transmitted orally, were not put in writing for the first time a few hundred years after its death and mix metaphysical and captions. Certain episodes, such that where it alleviates a furious elephant that his/her jealous cousin Devadatta would have released against him, could be authentic historical memories; others, like its conversations with the gods or his instantaneous teleportation with the Sri Lanka, are clearly not it. With the wire of time, a rich person captions developed in the Jataka S. In any event, the existence of Gautama-Shakyamuni founder of Buddhism is not questioned. He would have lived around sixth century BC and would have died around eighty years. The oldest tradition Pali considers that the dates of its birth and its death are respectively 624 and 544 before Jesus-Christ. All the traditions agree on the fact that Siddharta Gautama is contemporary of the two kings of the Magadha, Bimbisara and its son Ajatasattu, which often gave their support to him.

Beginnings

Mayadevi, wife of Suddhodana, modest sovereign (elected) of the small kingdom of Kapilavastu consisted a confederation of the Sakyas tribes, goes in his/her mother at the end of her pregnancy. Whereas it passes near a crowned wood of Lumbini, small village of the Nepal not far from Kapilavastu, it is taken pains. It is confined of a boy under a sal. The legends claim that the mother of the Buddha would have conceived it in dream, penetrated with the center by an white elephant with six defenses, that the birth would have been painless and that the sal would have lowered purposely one of its branches so that it catches it, while the brahmanic divinities made rain petals of flowers. As soon as born, the child would have put himself upright and would have taken possession symbolically Universe while turning to the cardinal points, or would have taken seven steps towards north and pushes " the howling of the lion" , metaphor of the Buddhist doctrines.

The legend, still, tells that his/her father made come, either only the Asita indicator, or the eight most famous indicators of the kingdom. The seven first predict to the young man a brilliant future of successor of his father, the last which it will leave the country. The king would have made lock up the bad omen. His/her mother dies quickly (seven days afterwards according to the tradition) because Siddharta is raised by Prajapati Gautami which would be his/her maternal aunt and Co marries of Shuddhodana. The young prince studies the letters, sciences, the languages, initiates himself with Hindu philosophy near a Brahman. An officer learns how to him to ride a horse, to draw with the arc, to fight with the lance, the saber and the sword. The evenings are devoted to the music and sometimes to the dance. Later, it falls in love and marries at the age of sixteen or twenty years Yashodhara, his German cousin, girl of a lord of the vicinity. The new husbands move in three small palaces: one of wood of cedar for the winter, one of marble for the summer and one of bricks for the rain season. After ten years of marriage, they give rise to a boy named Rahula.

Asceticism and awakening

Siddhârta, which is bored, often undertakes long walks. It meets successively an old man who walks with sorrow, a pestiferous cover of purulent bubos, a family in tears which transports the corpse of one as of his towards roughing-hew it, and finally a biksou, monk begging who, a bowl with the hand, searches his food without ceasing keeping the lowered eyes.

The prince includes/understands whereas if his condition the met with the shelter of the need, nothing will never protect it from old age, the illness and death. He wakes up one night in start and request with his servant, Chandaka, to harness his horse. The two men gallop to a wood close to the palate. Siddhârta gives up with its servant coat, jewels and horse and responsability the behavior of a poor hunter. He asks him to greet in his place his father, his wife and his adoptive mother and to say to them that he leaves them to seek the way of the hello.

Gautama undertakes a life of asceticism then and is devoted to austere méditatives practices. Six years later, whereas it is in the village of Bodh-Gayâ, it realizes that these practices did not lead it to a greater comprehension of the things and accepts a bowl of rice pudding of the hands of an young girl of the village, Sujata, putting thus fine at its mortifications. He recommends the average way which consists in denying excesses, refusing the excessive austerity as much that laxism. Judging this decision like a treason, the five disciples who followed it give up it. He concentrates consequently on the meditation, inspired by the one moment memory of felt spiritual concentration child, whereas sitted under a tree he attended the opening ceremony of the ploughings chaired by his father.

Siddhârta Gautama takes then place under a pippal (Ficus religiosa), making wish not move before to have reached the Truth. Several legends tell how Mâra, demon of death, frightened capacity which the Buddha was going to obtain against him by delivering the men of fear of dying, tries to leave it its meditation while launching against him the hordes of alarming demons and its daughters tempting. But it is a waste of time and effort and Buddha reaches the awakening a hand posed on the ground, in the posture of electrode earth with witness of its last merits. He affirms being arrived at the total comprehension of nature, of the causes of the human suffering and the stages necessary to his elimination. He will always insist on the fact that he is neither a god, nor the messenger of a god, and that the illumination (Bodhi) does not result from a supernatural intervention, but of an special attention paid to the nature of the human spirit; it is thus possible for all the beings.

Chief of the first sangha

During the forty-five last years of his life, Bouddha travels in the area of Gange and his affluents. He teaches his méditative practice and founds the community of the monks and Buddhist nuns, the sangha, so that its lesson remains after its disappearance. Its school generally profits from the support of kings de Magadha and survives a first attempt at schism on behalf of Devadatta.

Feeling its death to come, he asks his disciple Ananda to prepare a bed between two to him sals and dies with Kusinara in current the Uttar Pradesh, at the eighty years age. He reassures the Chunda blacksmith who offered his last meal to him and worries, within sight of the symptoms, to have perhaps poisoned the ascetic. The name of the been useful dish, sūkaramaddavam , is composed of " porc" ( will sūkara ) and " délice" ( maddavam ), and its true nature, pig or mushrooms (delight of the pigs), remain unknown. In any event, if the Végétarisme is a Buddhist ideal, the monks and nuns, who beg their food, are encouraged to accept all the offers which are made to them, same flesh-colored, unless they do not suspectent that an animal was especially killed to feed them. ^?

The last words of the Buddha are: “Impermanency is the universal law. Work with your own safety. ”.

Model man

The Buddhist writings which evoke the life and the character of Buddha speak about:

Its completed education and its training in the fields appropriate to a warrior aristocrat, such as martial arts, the management of the agricultural domains and literature, but also its major comprehension of the religious and philosophical ideas of its culture and its time. Siddhârta Gautama was a sporting, qualified man in martial arts such as the fight and the shooting with the arc, which could traverse kilometers and camp in wild nature
Its teaching ideal, which always finds the metaphor adapted, and which adapts to perfection its message with its audience, whatever it is
His courage and its serenity in all circumstances, as well during a religious discussion as vis-a-vis a parricidal prince (Ajatasattu) or to a murderer. It shows aggravation however when monks deform its lesson
Its moderation in all the body appetites. He will know the celibacy of the age of twenty-nine years until his death. He will be also indifferent to the hunger and the rigors of the climate.

Dipankara

Bhaisajyaguru

Maitreya

Amitabha

Dhyanibuddhas

Vairocana

Samantabhadra

Vajradhara

References and notes

See too

Quotations

" The puerile being seizes the end of the finger and not the moon the finger announces. Thus those which stick to the letter do not know my Reality. The conscience dances like a ballerina, the thought acts as juggler. The mental conscience with the five consciences forges a visible world and constitutes the scene of the théâtre."

" The birth is apparent, its disappearance is apparent, the heterogeneity of its duration is apparente."

" Impermanent are the tendencies fabricatrices, they have as a nature to be born and perish. Once come with the existence, they disappear. Their appeasing is bonheur."

Sources: http://onelittleangel.com

Internal bonds

Buddhas: Amitabha | Akshobhya | Bhaisajyaguru | Dipankara | Maitreya | Samantabhadra | Vairocana | Vajradhara | Twenty-eight Buddhas
Concepts: Dharmakāya | Nirmanakâya | Sambhogakâya | Tathagatagarbha | Bodhi
Beings on the way of the awakening: Sravaka | Four noble beings | Bodhisattva
Buddhism

External bonds

life of Buddha
Buddha Gautama At the Encyclopedia Chanel (230 biographical films butt historical figures).
the term '' buddha '' in the gun faded
images of Buddha

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