Kamakura Era Historical Buddha

TERMS FOR BUDDHA
Buddha, Tathagata, Nyorai, Butsu, Hotoke
The Historical Buddha lived in India around 560 to 480 BC. For comparative purposes, his contemporaries in China were Confucius and Lao-tzu (founder of Taoism). Only slightly later, around 400 BC, comes Plato in the West.

• Buddha
  Buddha is the past participle of Sanskrit buddh (to awaken, to know), and is tranlslated as "one who has awakened to the truth." Buddha is not a personal name. It is an honorific term, like messiah or christ (the anointed one).
   
• Tathagata (See "Nyorai" below for more)
  Another Sanskrit term for Buddha, translated either "thus come" or "thus gone." One of the ten epithets (ten honorable titles) of the Buddha. The nuances are (1) Tathagata is a spiritual principle, not a historical person; (2) implies that path followed by the Historical Buddha to attain enlightenment is open to all sentient beings; (3) means "coming from the origin."
   
•  
  This Sino-Japanese compound word comes from the Sanskrit Tathagata. Tatha means "thusness" (the original condition), while Gata means either going or coming. The Chinese stressed the sense of "coming," as did the Japanese. In Japanese, the term Tatha is also translated as Shinnyo , meaning intrinsic thusness. This latter term is used to represent the world of enlightenment, the world of Absolute Truth. The term Tathagata is thus translated directly as "one thus gone" or "one thus come." But in Japan, the term Nyorai may be more fully translated as "one who has come from the world of absolute truth to save all beings." For all practical purposes, the words Buddha, Tathagata, and Nyorai are synonymous in modern English usage. Each is an honorific title given to those who have attained enlightenment. For a review of Japan's most revered Nyorai, please click here.
   
•  
  The Chinese translated the Sanskrit Buddha into "butsu" and "da" . When the two-character Chinese term was transmitted to Japan, the first character only was used. It can be read as either "butsu" or "hotoke," but it is written with the same character. Both readings mean Buddha. 
   
• 
  Pronounced as either Butsu or Hotoke in Japan, but written with the same character. Both readings mean Buddha.
   
• Ten Epithets, Ten Honorable Titles, of the Buddha
  Sanskrit term followed by English meaning followed by Japanese reading and ideogram. 
   
• Tathagata; Thus-Come, Thus Gone; Nyorai
• Arhat; Worthy of Respect; Ougu
• Samyak-sambuddha; Correctly Enlightened;
  Shohenchi
• Vidya-carana-sampanna; Perfected in Wisdom & Action; Myogyosoku
• Sugata; Well-Gone; Zenzei
• Lokavid; Knower of the Secular World; Sekenge
• Anuttara; Unsurpassed; Mujoji
• Purusadamya-saratha; The Tamer; Jogojobu
• Sastadevamanusyanam; Teacher of Gods and Men;
  Tenninshi
• Bhagavan; World Honored One;
  Butsu-seson 

Above spellings for Ten Epithets courtesy of:
http://www.gakkaionline.net/study/GS-10Titles.html
http://asia.samgha101.net/dicts/deabt/japanese.htm
http://www.sgi-usa.org/ 

OTHER IMPORTANT TERMS / CONCEPTS

• BODHISATTVA (Sanskrit), BOSATSU (Japanese)
  One who seeks enlightenment. The penultimate state of enlightenment, just prior to Buddhahood. The original Sanskrit bodhisattva (bodhi = enlightenment, sattva = essence) meant "one who seeks enlightenment," but in modern Buddhism the term has taken on multiple meanings.
  
  

  Four-Character Chinese transliteration of Sanskrit Bodhisattva

  THREE DEFINITIONS
  OF BODHISATTVA (Bosatsu = J)
  The Chinese transliterated bodhisattva into four characters, but later abbreviated it, using only the first and third characters. The Japanese adopted the abbreviated spelling, which forms the Japanese word Bosatsu.
  
  The term "bodhisattva" was originally used to refer to the Historical Buddha before he attained enlightenment. With the introduction of Mahayana Buddhism, however, the term came to mean one who achieves enlightenment but delays Buddhahood, remaining instead on Earth to help all sentient beings attain salvation. This latter concept was vigorously promoted by Mahayana adherents to differentiate it from the Theravadin (Hinayana) concept of Arhat . The Arhat is also an enlightened being, but according to Mahayana believers, the Theravadin Arhat possesses an inferior, selfishly attained enlightenment, one based on "benefitting self." In contrast, the bodhisattva of Mahayana Buddhism is motivated entirely by compassion , by the desire to "benefit others" -- indeed, the highest aspiration of the Mahayana bodhisattva is to save all sentient beings.
  
  Bodhisattva has a third meaning as well -- it refers to anyone who sincerely seeks to save others while pursuing the path of enlightenment. Essentially, anyone who decides to pursue the Buddhist path can be called a bodhissatva, and many Mahayanans believe there are countless bodhisattvas on earth at any moment. Whereas Theravada Buddhism stresses the monastic life -- the monk's life -- as the only path to salvation (Arhatship), the Mahayana school says anyone, including laity, can attain Buddhahood by practicing the Bodhisattva values. A related Japanese term is Ritakyusai , meaning "emancipation by benefitting others." Click here for more on the differences between the Theravada and Mahayana schools.
  
  
• Enlightenment
  BODHI (Sanskrit), BODAI (Japanese), SATORI (Japanese)
  
  Generally speaking, the terms enlightenment, nirvana, and emancipation are synonymous in modern English usage. To attain enlightenment (satori) is to achieve nirvana. The result is emancipation from the cycle of suffering and delusion (see "Samsara" below).
   
• KARMA, KARMIC RETRIBUTION, Cause and Effect
  From Sanskrit KARMAN, "deed," fate, or work.
  
  The law of cause and effect. Doing good deeds will result in good effects, doing bad deeds will result in bad effects. Your actions in this life thus impact where you are "reincarnated" into the next -- see Six States of Existence. In essence, you "reap what you sow." The sins of the parent are NOT the sins of the child -- that which occurs to you in this life is that which you have brought upon yourself. You are responsible for your actions, not others. This is entirely opposite the Western tendency to place blame on others (e.g., my parents were neurotic, so they made me neurotic). This unwillingness to take responsibility in Christian traditions streches back to Adam and Eve, who themselves blame the serpent for beguiling them into eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. Yet, it appears, after further research, that in early Buddhist traditions among the Jains in India, parents could indeed pass on their bad karma to their children. Says Daniel J. Boorstin in his book "The Seekers:" 
   
• <abridged, pages 15, 16, 17>
  Karma was a byproduct of belief in the transmigration and reincarnation of souls. Karma was a name for the force of all a person's acts -- good or evil -- in all past incarnations shaping his destiny in the next incarnation. So karma was an ingenious way of giving each person some responsibility for prosperity or suffering in the present life. A classical form of the idea imagined this karmasaya as an accumulation of the forces of good and evil from what a person did (or failed to do) in earlier incarnations. The suffering or good foturne in the present life, then, was a punishment or reward for earlier acts, just as suffering or good fortune in future lives would compensate for the acts in this life. Writers in the Upanishads suggested that somehow the practice of yoga or the power of a god who lived outside the realm of karma might possibly help get a person off the wheel of samsara. Thus a person might avoid consequences of his acts in earlier incarnations. It is thus conceivable that a devout ascetic, renouncing all corrupting desires, might struggle free of his karmic debts.
  
  Some Hindu sects saw karma as physical seeds that could be passed on through the generations. A dying father, in one Upanishad text, is said to transfer his karma to his son. "Let me place my deeds on you." Then the son's acts of atonement would free the father in his later incarnation from the consequences of his own earlier misdeeds. The Jains, from the sixth century B.C., made much of these possibilities. They imagined the pure liva, or living spirit, in each person that could and should be kept free of the karmic pollution that might burdern a person's next incarnation. The Jains' discipline aimed to keep the liva unpolluted, and so assure its rising toward enlightenment through rebirths. Their ahimsa, dogma of absolute nonviolence, made them fearful even of accidentally killing insects. As rigorous vegetarians, they applied ahimsa to plants. They refused to pick a living fruit from a tree, but waited till it fell ripe to the ground.
  
  Followers of Buddha (who died about 480 B.C.), embroidering the Hindu notions, found their own ways of calculating the ethical balance sheet. They distinquished "deed karman" from "mental karman" (thoughts and motivations), and distinguished deeds from their results. They also attached karma to families and nations. But they kept inviolate their belief in the inevitable balancing of the karmic books. A person's present life was determined by past actions in other incarnations, but only until all those influences had been used up. Still, the chanting of sacred verses by a relative or a monk might reduce the force of evil karma. The Buddhist belief in an all-pervading flux kept them from any idea of a personal immortal soul. But they imagined a kind of karmic residue that adhered through endless incarnations." <end abridged quote by Daniel Boorstin> 
   
• NIRVANA (Sanskrit)
  
  The Historical Buddha sought, through meditation, to attain a state known as Nirvana, in which one is free of desire and therefore suffering. Nirvana literally means "the state of a flame being blown out." It represents the quiet state of mind that exists when the fires of attachment and desire are extinguished. It can also refer to the "flame of death." The death of the Historical Buddha, for example, is referred to as "the Great Extinction." But in general parlance, nirvana means heaven, the ultimate state, the final goal of those who practice Buddhism.
   
• SAMSARA (Sanskrit)
  
  The cycle of life and death, rebirth and redeath, of delusion and suffering, in which all sentient beings are trapped unless they can break free of the cycle. The "cycle" refers generally to the Six States of Existence, although there are also two, three, four, seven, and twelve kinds of samsara (not discussed herein). The Six States of Existence are also known as the Six Paths of Reincarnation or Transmigration. One must achieve nirvana (enlightenment, satori) to break free of the cycle of samsara. Breaking free of the cycle of reincarnation is called "emancipation." Please click here for details on the Six States. In Japan, where Mahayana teachings are widely practiced, groupings of six statues of Jizo Bosatsu are quite common, one for each of the six realms. This grouping is called "Roku Jizo," or Six Jizo, in Japanese. In the Tantric traditions of Tibet, the Wheel of Life on Tibetan Tankas depicts the six realms with great graphic detail -- the wheel is traditionally clutched in the hands of Yama, the Lord of Death, and shows images of hell, torture, war, human life, divine spirits, and other detailed iconography.
   
• TEACHINGS OF THE HISTORICAL BUDDHA
  Click here for Guide to Teachings of Buddha, which includes dozens of terms with Japanese spellings.