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Hello.
Someone here can help in clarifying who’s “The Thus Gone One” ?
Thanks
Aṅguttara Nikāya 3. Tika Nipāta 8. Anandavaggo. Mettanet – Lanka.
“Here Ānanda, the Thus Gone One pervades the three thousandfold and the great thousandfold world system with an effulgent light, so that those sentient beings see it, then the Thus Gone One makes a sound. In this manner an announcement is made to the three thousandfold and the great thousandfold world system if he “desires.” -
I cannot find that sutta. If you can provide a link to the Pāli sutta, I can take a look at it. The way to provide a link is explained here:
How to Reply to a Forum Question
– Please provide a link to the Pali sutta always.In any case, I have seen translations of the word tathāgata as “Thus Gone One”.
But the meaning of the word tathāgata is explained in the “Loka Sutta (Iti 112)“.I have made a few “improvements” to the English translation there:
“Bhikkhus, the world has been fully understood by the Tathāgata; the Tathāgata is released from the world. The origin of the world (with suffering) has been fully understood by the Tathāgata; the causes for the origin of the world have been understood and by the Tathāgata. The cessation of the world has been fully understood by the Tathāgata; the cessation of the world has been realized by the Tathāgata. The path leading to the cessation of the world has been fully understood by the Tathāgata; the path leading to the cessation of the world has been followed by the Tathāgata.
“Bhikkhus, in the world with its devas, māras, and brahmās, with its recluses and brahmins, among humankind with its princes and people, whatever is seen, heard, sensed, cognized, attained, sought, and reflected upon by the mind—that is fully understood by the Tathāgata: therefore he is called the Tathāgata.
“Bhikkhus, from the night when the Tathāgata awakened to unsurpassed full enlightenment until the night when he passes away into the Nibbāna-element with no residue left, whatever he speaks and explains—all that is correct and not otherwise: therefore he is called the Tathāgata.
“As the Tathāgata says, so he does; as the Tathāgata does, so he says: therefore he is called the Tathāgata.
“In the world with its devas, māras, and brahmās, with its recluses and brahmins, among humankind with its princes and people, the Tathāgata is the conqueror, unvanquished, all-seer, wielding power: therefore he is called the Tathāgata.”
By knowledge of the whole world,
The whole world as it truly is,
He is released from all the world,
From all the world he is unattached.The all-conquering heroic sage,
Freed from every bond is he;
He has reached that perfect peace,
Nibbāna which is free from fear.Rid of taints, he is enlightened,
Trouble-free, with doubts destroyed,
Reached the final end of deeds,
Released by clinging’s full destruction.The Enlightened One, the Lord,
The best is he, unsurpassed;
For in the world together with its devas
He set the Dhamma-wheel in motion.Thus those devas and human beings,
Gone for refuge to the Buddha,
On meeting him pay homage to him,
Upon being released from suffering.Tamed, of the tamed he is the best;
Calmed, of the calmed he is the seer;
Freed, of the freed he is the foremost;
Crossed, of the crossed he is the chief.Thus do they pay him due homage,
The greatest freed from suffering:
In the world together with its devas
There is no equal. -
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Lal:
…found it. I googled metta.net. Pali as well. AND Sinhala for good measure.
http://metta.lk/tipitaka/2Sutta-pitaka/4Anguttara-nikaya/index.html
Metta (of course !!)
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I still do not see the word “tathāgata” there.
That last verse by Ven. Ananda says: “Tumhe loke sukatā.”, which is translated as, “well gone in the world”
– That is not too bad, but it would have been better to translate that as, “became free of suffering in the world” or something like that.Anyway, those are good suttas to read. They describe what are dhamma (moral) and what are adhamma (immoral).
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Lal,
I am not disputing the meaning of Tathagata as you give it, nor even delving into the etymology of the word. I did not read the Pali version myself. All I tried to do was to provide you access to the source Yeos quoted, so that you may go into it if you wish.
Ah..it must be easier in higher realms.
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“I cannot find that sutta. IF YOU CAN PROVIDE A LINK to the Pāli sutta, I can take a look at it”
I just provided that link since you asked for it That was all. Again,I did not read the Pali version myself, so I was not aware the word Tathagatha was not there. Sorry if it wasted your and others’ time instead.
See what I mean about my intentions being misunderstood?
Metta
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Yes. I said, ” IF YOU CAN PROVIDE A LINK to the Pāli sutta..”
You did not provide a link to the Pali sutta with the relevant Pali word in question: “tathāgata”.
As I said, I appreciate you trying to help. But we need to make sure the information is RELEVANT.
– Otherwise the discussion board will have too much clutter.
– We don’t want people to spend time reading material that is not relevant to the subject.I am closing this topic. I think the meaning of the word “tathāgata” is clear.
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We are still experiencing difficulties with submitting new questions/comments to the forum.
The following comment is from Vassil, who says his comment was not published. So, he emailed me the following comment.
Hi everyone!
Yeos, you might be new to Buddha Dhamma in this jāti (in this birth/life) and thus many words used directly and without explanations in Buddhistic contexts might be unfamiliar.
When I first encountered Tathāgata I wasn’t sure what it means. Later I’ve learned it’s how the Buddha himself referred to himself on several occasions. It is also how others might refer to Buddha.
Apart from Lal’s explanations, I would like to add a little bit of information about the etymology of the word. In the English-speaking world, one of the first textbooks on Pāli was written by A. K. Warner (A. K. Warder). He wrote a book called “Introduction to Pāli” first published in 1963. Prior to that, the Pāli Text Society has published numerous translations of texts (and dictionaries), but not really a “coursebook” or a “manual” of the language. However, according to Justin Meiland, some of Warder’s translations of Pāli words weren’t satisfactory. In his book “Pali Language Course” Meiland notes:
Tathāgata is another problematic word. A common epithet of the Buddha, it is sometimes translated as ‘thus-gone’ (tathā meaning ‘thus’ and gata ‘gone’). However, at the end of a compound, ‘-gata’ often simply means ‘is’ and so tathā-gata appears to mean ‘is thus’ (i.e. the Buddha has reached a state which can only be described as ‘thus’). It is perhaps best to leave the word untranslated.
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Here’s another thing I found, should be very interesting to anyone familiar with linguistics.
Bryan Levman in his book “Linguistic Ambiguities in the Transmission Process, and the Earliest Recoverable Language of Buddhism” says this about tathāgata:
…Aspiration and de-aspiration could also have the same effect, and although
Buddhaghosa did not explore this phenomenon, this kind of change is fairly common … and
would lead to such interpretations as tata-gata, “gone to the father” or “gone to the wind” (from
tata as noun < p.p. of √tan) or “he who has manifested/diffused and departed” (taking both
tata and gata as past participles)……Thomas suggests that tathāgata was derived from tatthagata or tatthāgata < S tatraāgata (“he who has arrived there, i.e. at emancipation”) and Buddhaghosa seems to have
recognized this possibility in his fifth interpretation above (tattha tatha-dassi-atthe) with his
juxtaposition of the two phonetically similar forms……Moreover, no one has examined the possibility that gata (which was probably transmitted as gaya with the intervocalic -y-, often written as -ẏ- standing for the weakly articulated intervocalic stop) may have stood for gaja (“elephant”; tatha-gaja, “true elephant”) or gaya itself (“household, abode, family”; tatha-gaya, “one’s true family”)…
…I am only indulging in these last two fanciful derivations to make a point: we are not sure what the word tathāgata means, anymore than Buddhaghosa was 1500 years ago; and it is quite possible, since its etymology was never handed down, that neither were the original users of the term, except for the Buddha himself. Indeed, the word was probably transmitted in a
Prakritized form as tahāgaya and later Sanskritized to tathāgata……Tathāgata described in the Introduction – we are not sure of the meaning of this common Buddhist word; although we know it refers to some kind of minor misdemeanour, we do not know how it gets its meaning…
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