Talk:Lohan (Buddhism)

message: Apparently someone thinks matters aught be discussed @ Talk:Three Buddhas. I'll see what can be done there, feel free to join us if your reading this. Sam [Spade] 19:44, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: The list of questions below by (20040302 09:07, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Mahayana arhats

message: Here's Red Pine (Bill Porter) on arhans (sic) in the Lotus, from his book The Heart Sutra, p138:
:...in Chapter Two of the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha tells Shariputta and the other arhans seeking to become bodhisattvas that the nirvana they have attained is really but an imaginary oasis on the road to buddahood.
Nobody's perfect but Pine is pretty good at this kind of thing. So I'll be reviewing that chapter when I get around to it. Pine is probably talking about stuff like "Even if the whole world were filled with men like Shariputra...still they could not understand". 
The historical Shariputra (his relics were dredged up by Sir Alexander Cunningham in 1851) was considered an arhat, whose attainment, if that is the word, was as respected as anyone of his time except Shakyamuni. I am not aware that during his lifetime anyone ever questioned his qualifications to teach.
Consider the Heart Sutra, which, like the Lotus, almost certainly does not record an actual event in Shariputra's life. In the sutra, the Bodhisattva Avolokiteshvara lectures Shariputra about emptiness, etc., in several cases reiterating doctrines well known in the Nikaya tradition. Reasonable persons can detect the condescension to which Charles Muller referred. Perhaps his statement was not "defensive, counter-factual" as the history page suggests. I've a few more things to do on this, but the gist of his remarks should be restored—that the arhat was a foil for the Mahayana examplar. The other points he makes can be covered pro and con in certain other wikis. --Munge 07:45, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arhats in the Lotus and Heart sutras 

message: So, someone deleted "foe destroyer". I imagine that's because it's not immediately obvious from Apte, or the Cologne online version of Monier Williams. However, it is found as a translation for arihat in the original Monier-Williams; see the lower right hand corner of the scanned page. I certainly see the term "foe destroyer" or similar used as a translation for arhat/arhan/arahant etc. Notably This translation of the Diamond Sutra displays both in English and Sanskrit] and uses the phrase "Destroyer of the foe" a lot (generally, in a favorable context, as a title of honor for Buddha). Some of those passages correspond to the ones where Thich Nhat Hanh uses the term arhat. Actually, I am not sure there is even an extant Diamond sutra in Sanskrit--is that other one real, or some kind of re-translation back into Sanskrit from Chinese or Tibetan or something? In any event, I am expressing the hope that others might help with more reliable sources. --Munge 04:37, 21 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "foe destroyer" 

message: Paul Williams, in Mahayana Buddhism (subtitle) The Doctrinal Foundations, pp100-101, sez (I'm blowing off diacritics as usual) "Perhaps the most important Tathagatagarbha sutra, at least in terms of citations in later Indian sources, is the Srimaladevisimhanada Sutra. It has bgben suggested that this sutra was ooriginally a Mahasamghika scripture composed in the Deccan/South India (Andhra) during the third century CE." (footnote omitted here) "The point remains controversial, however. The text as it standard draws a sharp contrast between the non-Mahayana saints on the one hand and fuly enlightened Buddha on the other. the Arhats and Pratykabuddhas have not finished with karma, they will be reborn, they are far from the ' nirvana-realm ' (Buddhahood...) The tathagatagarbha is the domain of the Buddha alone, it is not realized by the non-Mahayana saints..." --Munge 09:22, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arhat in the ''Srimaladevisimhanada Sutra'' 

message: * Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (log in with userID "guest")  Kipholbeck 11:00, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Broken link from article 

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:21, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: Once I have read that the status of arahat in Hinduism corresponded to the status of a Brahmin. Do you know, too?
:Austerlitz -- 88.75.69.84 (talk) 12:44, 6 January 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Arhat and [[Brahmin]]

message: The reason for removing the statement 'In the Pali Canon, the word is sometimes used as a synonym for tathagata.' is because it is incorrect though moving in the right direction. Tathagata is the epithet that Gautama Buddha used when referring to himself and himself only. Arhat, as used in the Pali Canon, however, refers to anybody who has attained nirvana. Therefore, the Buddha Gotama sometimes refers to himself as an Arhat because he is someone who has attained nirvana. However, the word Tathagata, although its meaning refers to the ambiguous ontological status of one who abides in nirvana, is only ever applied to Gautma Buddha because he is the founder of the Way. The word is never applied to anyone else. Thankyou. 81.109.10.218 (talk) 12:28, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: No, it sometimes refers to other arahants as well. I just read a sutta like that. Mitsube (talk) 00:51, 10 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Tathagata