Buddha

Question 1

Buddha - word stem

Answer 1

Buddha = awaken one (one of the three je–well buddhatva = Buddhahood (the state of being a Buddha)
√budh = to wake up
bodhi = awakening
bodhi-sattva = being [dedicated to] Awakening

Titles assumed by Buddhas: Bhagavant (Lord), Jina (Victor), Tathāgata (Thus-Gone)

Question 2

buddhist saintly figures

Answer 2

samyaksaṃbuddha: complete and Perfect Buddha to discover and teach the Dharma
™ (pPatyekabuddha, solitary Buddha)
™arhant, worthy one

Question 3

Names of the buddha

Answer 3

Gautama / Gotama (lineage name)
Siddhārtha / Siddhattha (who has achieved his aim)
Śākyamuni (sage of the Śākya clan)

Question 4

no safe sources of biography

Answer 4

No sources that can be dated safely to his time.
Ø When exactly the Buddha lived is a mystery, but ca. 480–400 is the most common
hypothesis.
™ Earliest sources are not concerned with all the details of his life. Ø An example of what we don’t know: the name of his mother.
Māyā : A Middle Indic word corresponding to Sanskrit Mātā, “mother”
™ Huge diversity of later sources, each giving a different version of the main events of the Buddha’s life.
™Hagiographical nature of all these sources.

Question 5

Buddha Biography specifics

Answer 5

Narratives about events in the–Buddha’s life have clustered around places in which his presence was believed to be enduring (pilgrimage feed into biography)
™ A “complete” biography of the Buddha includes the account of his earlier lives.
Ø “Biography” is not a universal genre.
™ No written account of the Buddha’s life, from birth to death, before the 2nd century CE
™ The first full sequence of events might have been created in stone by artists, in visual narratives featuring on stūpas.