arhat

[ahr-huht]

or arahant

In Buddhism, one who has gained insight into the true nature of existence, has achieved nirvana, and will not be reborn. Theravada Buddhism regards becoming an arhat as the goal of spiritual progress. It holds that a seeker must pass through three earlier stages before being reborn in a heaven as an arhat. Mahayana Buddhism criticizes the goal of becoming an arhat as selfish and considers the bodhisattva to be a higher goal because the bodhisattva remains in the cycle of rebirths to work for the good of others. This divergence of opinion is one of the fundamental differences between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.

Arhat

In the sramanic traditions of ancient India (most notably those of Mahavira and Gautama Buddha) arhat (Sanskrit) or arahant (Pali) signified a spiritual practitioner who had—to use an expression common in the tipitaka—"laid down the burden"—and realised the goal of nirvana, the culmination of the spiritual life (brahmacarya). Such a person, having removed all causes for future becoming, is not reborn after biological death into any samsaric realm.

Origin

The word "arahan" literally means "worthy one (an alternative folk etymology is "foe-destroyer" or "vanquisher of enemies) and constitutes the highest grade of noble person—ariya-puggala—described by the Buddha as recorded in the Pali canon. The word was used (as it is today in the liturgy of Theravada Buddhism) as an epithet of the Buddha himself as well as of his enlightened disciples. The most widely recited liturgical reference is perhaps the homage: Namo Tassa Bhagavato, Arahato, Samma-sammbuddhassa.—Homage to him, the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the perfectly enlightened Buddha.

Variations

Burmese: ရဟန္တာ (yahanda; IPA: ; MLCTS: ra. hanta)
Chinese: 阿羅漢/羅漢 (āluóhàn, luóhàn); rarer terms: 應供 (yinggong), 應真 (yingzhen), 真人 (zhenren). "真人" normally refers to a respected Taoist, and the term comes from the book Huangdi Neijing.
Hindi: अर्हन्त (arhant)
Japanese: 阿羅漢羅漢 (arakan, rakan)
Korean: 나한 (nahan), 아라한(arahan)
Tibetan: dgra bcom pa
Thai: อรหันต์ (arahan^t)
Vietnamese: la hán
Mongolian: найдан

Theravada Buddhism

In Theravada Buddhism the Buddha himself is first named as an arahant, as were his enlightened followers, since he is free from all defilements, without greed, hatred, and delusion, rid of ignorance and craving, having no "assets" that will lead to a future birth, knowing and seeing the real here and now. This virtue shows stainless purity, true worth, and the accomplishment of the end, nibbana.

In the Pali canon, Ven. Ānanda states that he has known monastics to achieve nibbana in one of four ways:

one develops insight preceded by serenity (Pali: );
one develops serenity preceded by insight ();
one develops serenity and insight in a stepwise fashion ();
one's mind becomes seized by excitation about the dhamma and, as a consequence, develops serenity and abandons the fetters ().

In Theravada, although the Arahants has achieved the same goals which is identical to Buddha, there are some differences among Arahant due to the way of their practice.

Mahayana Buddhism

Mahayana Buddhists see the Buddha himself as the ideal towards which one should aim in one's spiritual aspirations. Hence the arhat as enlightened disciple of the Buddha is not regarded as the goal as much as is the bodhisattva. Bodhisattva carries a different meaning in Mahayana Buddhism compared to Theravada Buddhism. In the Pali scriptures the Tathagata when relating his own experiences of self-development uses a stock phrase "when I was an unenlightened bodhisattva". Bodhisattva thus connotes here the absence of enlightenment (Bodhi) of a person working towards that goal. In Mahayana Buddhism, on the other hand a bodhisattva is someone who seeks to put the welfare of others before their own, forfeiting their own enlightenment until all beings are saved. Such a person is said to have achieved a proto-enlightenment called bodhicitta.

Jainism

In Jainism, the term "arhat" or "arihant" is a synonym for jina and is a siddha who has not yet died and thereby lost all aghatiya karma.

It is not a synonym of Tirthankar, which refers specifically to certain arhats who have certain karmas that enable them to become teachers of Jainism. The Jain Navakar Mantra starts with "Namo Arhantanam".

Notes

References

Bodhi, Bhikkhu (ed.) (2005). In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pāli Canon.Boston: Wisdom Pubs. ISBN 0-86171-491-1.

Khantipalo, Bhikkhu (1989). Buddha, My Refuge: Contemplation of the Buddha based on the Pali Suttas. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society. ISBN 9-55240-037-6. An excerpt from the "Introduction" is available on-line at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Buddhawaslike/message/17.

Rhys Davids, T.W. & William Stede (eds.) (1921–5). The Pali Text Society's Pali–English dictionary. Chipstead: Pali Text Society. A general on-line search engine for the PED is available at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/dictionaries/pali/.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu (trans.) (1998). Yuganaddha Sutta: In Tandem. Available on-line at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.170.than.html.