[cubibobi]

Dear Lal,

First of all, Happy New Year to you!

I was reading two posts about Namaskaraya and Tisarana Vandana:

“Namaskaraya – What does it Really Mean?”
“Supreme Qualities of Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha”

My question is: “bhagavato” in Namaskaraya is different from “bhagavā” in Tisarana Vandana? I always thought that they were the same word.

–bhagavato
“bhaga” is to separate and “vata” is the usually translated as body, but it has more wider meaning to anything in this world. The Buddha, in trying to show that uselessness of clinging to one’s body, advised to separate the body into 32 parts and see that there is nothing substantial in any of the parts. Even though we highly value our bodies, it will decay with old age, and will eventually give us only sicknesses and ailments. And it will last only about 100 years.

–Bhagavā
Bhagavä or Bhagavath – “Bha” + “ga” + “vatha” – Able to examine a living being’s origin in many different ways. Here “Bha” is bhava or existence and “ga” means connection or relationship, and “vatha” is the form of any being.

Best,
Lang

[Lal]

Happy New Year to you too, Lang!

Yes. As I mentioned in one of those two posts, each quality of a Buddha can be described in many ways.
– The qualities of a Buddha cannot really described in a limited way. They are infinite. I have not seen a reference to a sutta, but Waharaka Thero has mentioned that there is a sutta that states so. And I have no doubt about that.
– The point is that each one of us starts with that set of nine described in a way we can understand (and each of us may be described differently by differently people; I have a book in Sinhala on the 24 supreme qualities of the Tiratana or Three Jewels: Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha).
– As our understanding grows, we can see that those nine are inadequate, even if we stick to just nine.
– One’s faith grows too, and that is all that matters. That mindset is important, since it allows one to comprehend deeper Dhamma. Some people disregard these chantings as “ritualistic”, but they are not, if one does that with understanding. Of course, chanting the verses like a parrot will be of no use.

[LayDhammaFollower]

Link to sutta where buddha describes various ways in which Puthujjano praises the buddha and buddha describes how they should actually do it.

And it’s in Brahmajala Sutta!!!

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/dn/dn.01.0.bodh.html

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