Bodhisattva
| Translations of Bodhisattva |
|
|---|---|
| English | enlightenment being |
| Pali | बोधिसत्त |
| Sanskrit | बोधिसत्त्व |
| Bengali | বোধিসত্ত্ব |
| Burmese |
ဗောဓိသတ် (IPA: [bɔ́dḭθaʔ]) |
| Chinese |
菩薩, 菩萨 (Pinyin: púsà) (Wade–Giles: p'u2-sa4) |
| Japanese |
菩薩 (rōmaji: bosatsu) |
| Khmer | ពោធិសត្វ |
| Korean |
보살, 菩薩 (RR: bosal) |
| Mon |
တြုံလၟောဝ်ကျာ် ([kraoh kəmo caik]) |
| Sinhala | |
| Tibetan |
བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ་ (byang chub sems dpa) |
| Thai | โพธิสัตว์ phothisat |
| Vietnamese | Bồ Tát |
| Glossary of Buddhism | |
In Mahayana Buddhism, bodhisattva is the Sanskrit term for anyone who, motivated by great compassion, has generated bodhicitta, which is a spontaneous wish to attain buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. Bodhisattvas are a popular subject in Buddhist art.
In early Indian Buddhism, the term bodhisattva was primarily used to refer specifically to Gautama Buddha in his former life. The Jataka tales, which are the stories of the Buddha's lives, depict the various attempts of the bodhisattva to embrace qualities like self-sacrifice and morality.
From this Jataka tales, Bodhisattva originally meant the Buddhism practitioner of austerities that surpassed Śrāvakayana and Pratyekabuddhayana by far and completed Bodhisattvayana. Mount Potalaka, for example, is one of Bodhisattvayana. The name for practitioners who do not yet reach Bodhisattvayana was not fixed, but the terms Śrāvaka-Bodhisattva (聲聞菩薩) or Pratyekabuddha-Bodhisattva (縁覚菩薩) already appear in Āgama which is one of the sutras of early Indian Buddhism.
Mahayana Buddhist did not honor Śrāvakayana and Pratyekabuddhayana as Hinayana, but praised Bodhisattvayana. Because Hinayana was disliked and the terms Śrāvaka-Bodhisattva or Pratyekabuddha-Bodhisattva were not used generally, usage of the term bodhisattva had expanded over time. Bodhisattva of course has arhatship in the same way as Śrāvaka and Pratyekabuddha. The goal of Mahayana's bodhisattva path is not Buddhahood but Samyaksambodhiṃ.
...
Wikipedia