Tathagata
Tathāgata (
Pali and
Sanskrit. "one who has thus gone" - tathā-gata; "one who has thus come" - tathā-āgata; or " one who has gone to
That", Tat-āgata; pron: taaht-āhgatah) (ch.如來)(jp. 如来) is the name which the historical
Buddha Gautama used when referring to himself . The term is deliberately ambiguous, reflecting the ineffable
ontological status of a fully
liberated human being transcending categories of being and non-being. Thus tathāgata reflects these ambiguities. Gautama Buddha used this word as his preferred personal appellation. In the
scriptures instead of saying 'me' or 'myself' he says, "The tathagata is such and such..." emphasising that as an enlightened being he has gone beyond human personality -
the absence of self being a central doctrine of Gautama Buddha's teaching.
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Tathagata
Tathagata (Sanskrit) [from tatha thus + gata gone; or + agata arrived, come] Thus come or thus gone; a title given to the long serial line of the Buddhas of Compassion as they appear each after his predecessor among mankind; likewise a title of Gautama Buddha, the last of this line of buddhas to have appeared thus far. It is a beautifully exact expression illustrating the common spiritual character of the great ones who have gone before ourselves as well as of those destined to come in the future. As a title of the buddhas, it signifies also "one who has followed the inward way, the inner pathway, the still small path coming down, so to say, from the universal self, passing through the human constitution onward until it disappears again in the heart of being from which we came" (Fund 625).
Tathagata
A term for the
Buddha (Siddartha) which means "The Enlightened One."