glossary
[All non-English terms are of the Sanskrit language unless otherwise indicated.]
Adharma. Irreligion; lack of dutifulness; confusion.
Asuras. Titanic demons, enemies of the gods. They sometimes have the opposite meaning.
Bhikshu. A beggar, peripatetic mendicant, religious almsman, especially in the Śaiva context of a brahmin in one of the final two renounced orders of the traditional four-fold staging (āśrama) of life. Contrasted to the third or vānaprashta order of hermitic dwelling in the wild, the bhikshu mode is more in character to the classic fourth and final stage of a caste-brahmin's life, that being sannyāsa-āśrama when the sannyāsīn subsists entirely on alms. The bhikshu mode and terminology became an early fixture within the highly pervasive bauddha mendicant culture as well.
Bodhi. Intelligence, awakened realitly, truth, or in Classical Greek aletheia.
Bodhisattva. Literally, awakened-purity-being, one on the way to complete enlightenment; one who seeks enlightenment in order to enlighten others; an enlightened being.
Buddha. An awakened person, 'the aletheial one.' From the Vedic root budh, "awake," metaphorically meaning that a buddha is awake while ordinary people are half-asleep. As a released or liberated person (see moksha), a buddha is synonymous to a jīvan-mukta. See also "Gautama."
Buddha-field. Heavenly abode. The field of consciousness created by the ideation of an enlightened being.
Dakshina. 'Generosity, giving, wealth.' A form of offering with deep ritualistic significance vis-à-vis food, money and goods given specifically to ascetics or spiritual teachers, as evinced in the institution of guru-dakshina. In Bauddhic traditions dakshina has been largely supplanted by the related term dāna, which actually denotes an exclusively secular form or 'act of giving, donation, gift, liberality, sharing, distributing, and purification.'
Dāna. The act of sharing or giving in the spirit of liberality; donation; a purificatory practice, i.e. yoga.
Deva. Divine-realm being; a god, the highest incarnation.
Dharma. The chief element of existence; a thing, all things, anything thing great or small, visible or invisible, real or unreal, concrete or abstract. Ultimate nature, reality; righteousness; truth, law or doctrine. The ultimate religion; sacred law, moral law, duty, rectitude. From the Sanskrit root, dhr, to hold or support; that which forms a foundation and upholds; a form, an infrastructure; "the interpreted order of the world."
Dharma is basically the means to and end, the ultimate end of which is moksha.
Dhoti. A light and comfortable hand-woven cotton normally worn as a covering waist down.
Gautama. The proper name for the great sixth-century BCE Indian yogin-philosopher Siddhārtha Gautama, Buddha. See also "Buddha."Kumarajiva (CE 344–413). Indian Bauddha scholar and missionary born in Kucha, present day Xinjiang, China. When his mother, a Kuchean princess, became a nun, he followed her into monastic life at the age of seven. He grew up in Bauddha centres. In 383, Chinese forces seized Kucha and took Kumarajiva to China. From 401 he was at the Ch'in court in the capital Chang'an (the modern Xi'an). He taught and translated Bauddha scriptures into Chinese. With 500 scholar monks assisting him, he is said to have translated more than 100 Bauddha works. Twenty-four are authenticated. These and include some of the most important titles in the Chinese Bauddha canon.
Mahārāja. Literally "great king," the rank of a reigning prince or sovereign, a paramount sovereign, emperor; a class of devas or divine order beings (the guardians of the earth and heavens against the demons); a common honorific applied to a male ascetic or spiritual teacher.
Moksha. Liberation of a spiritual nature from material and corporeal bondage. 'To be released' – i.e. 'to shed or cast off,' as of a bodily covering. Possibly cognate to molt or moult, an alteration of Middle English mouten, from Old English mūtian (bemūtian, 'to exchange for'), from Latin mūtāre, to change. Thus moksha and molt may share of the same Indo-European root *moi-/*mei-, 'to change or exchange' (cf. Sanskrit methati 'changes, alternates, joins, meets'). The implication here is that to molt or "mok" – vis-à-vis moksha – is to shed the old body for a new 'transmuted' one, or even for none. In early Vedic society moksha was regarded as one the four noble aspirations of human life, the others being dharma (destiny), artha (wealth) and kama (pleasure).
Never-returner. Ānāgamin. A non-coming (back) or non-returning saint (arhat) who will not be reborn. The third stage of Bauddhic liberation.
Nirvāna. Complete absorption into the undifferentiated ground of being; spiritual bliss. Divine freedom.
Once re-launcher. Sakrdāgāmin (lit. 'returning only once again'). One who is to be reborn only once more and must therefore again re-launch a raft in the stream that inevitably flows to the ocean of total release (viz. moksha). The name of the second of the four orders of Bauddha Aryas (noble ones); the second stage of liberation involving one birth only.
Prajñāpāramitā. Prajñā means "intellect"; pāramitā, "perfection" (lit. pāra, beyond + mitā, measure).
Punya. A timely benefit, favour, blessing, boon. The acquisition of auspicious, propitious, fair, pleasant, good, right, virtuous, meritorious, pure, holy or sacred gain as in retribution for acts of a similar quantity, quality and nature. Hindu traditions, both orthodox and heterodox (e.g. Jaina and Bauddha cults) generically repeat and recitate "merit" and its required accruement in order to obtain the promise of deliverance as a summum bonum or "highest good" vis-à-vis moksha, paramamoksha, mukti, nirvrti, nirvāna, kaivalya, et al. Hence the prescription for meritorious activities; examples of which are pilgrimage to holy sites, circumambulation of stupas, lighting of ghee-lamps on the alters and ledges attached to shrines, and the offering of alms to ascetics.
Sannyāsī. See bhikshu above. Literaly "perfectly constructed," "polished," "refined." The Indo-European-based classical literary language of northern India. It reached its highest refinement ca. 400 BCE with the grammatical work of Pānini.
Śravāstī. "The famous City" near to which was situated Jetavana park, the favourite retreat place of Gautama, in the present day northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.
Subhūti. From root subhū, 'well made or done' (as food); (feminine) that part of the frame enshrining the universal Spirit; welfare, well-being; of an excellent nature, good, strong, beautiful. Legendarily a senior disciple of Gautama who attained sainthood by means of meditation on the intellect.
Stream-enterer or Srotāpanna, signifying 'one who has entered the stream' (of the holy life); the initial stage of Bauddhic liberation.
Sujāta. A young woman whose offering of food as dakshina to Gautama just before his gaining Enlightenment under the banyan tree near the city of Gaya. Bauddha doctrine views her timely offering to be the supreme meritorious act of dakshina.
Sumeru. A celestial mountain supporting Trayastrimśā, the heaven of the thirty-three devas; second of the six heavens of Kāmaloka, the realm of enjoyment.
Sūtra. Literally, "thread" and by extension 'discourse, teaching, sermon.' In the Bauddha context, a sermon of Gautama or other close disciple.
Tantra. Continuance tool.
Tathāgata. Pronounced, ta-ThĀ-ga-ta (aspirated h). The nature of a buddha; one who has followed in the footsteps of all buddhas, treading the way of cause and effect to attain to prajñāpāramitā "perfect wisdom"; one of the highest titles of a buddha.
Totally finished one. Arahat (Pali: arhan), also pronounced and written Arhat, Rahat, Arhant. A "worthy," lit. "noble," thus "holy one"; a "saint" deserving of godly honours. The term and notion gained early usage particularly among the Jaina tradition to designate one who has entered the best and highest life path, and thereby exempt from further transmigration. It was subsequently adopted by the Bauddha camp.
Yoga. From the Indo-European root yeug-, 'join, attach, hold fast, bind, connect.' Broadly speaking, this Vedic term yoga pertains to any form of asceticism or meditative technique, including prayer.
Yogi. Vernacular form of and same as yogin.
Yogin. A contemplative saint, devotee, ascetic.
Yoginī. Feminine form of yogin. Historically the yoginī also carries a highly ritualistic and iconographic sense of 'wild, blood-drinking and skull-decked female spirit' as was prevalent in certain early Tantric cults (See Alexis Sanderson, Śaivism and the Tantric Traditions, in The World's Religions, 1988: 671ff).
