Dictionary of Pali Proper Names v2.c29.836

v2.c29.836

**Bodhisatta.**—The name given to a being who aspires to *Bodhi* or Enlightenment.¹ The word can therefore be used in reference to all those who seek Nibbāna, including Buddhas, Pacceka-Buddhas, and the disciples of Buddhas (*Buddhapacekabuddhabuddhasāvakā*), but is commonly used only of those beings who seek to become Buddhas. The word may have been used originally only in connection with the last life of a Buddha, in such contexts as "in the days before my Enlightenment, when as yet I was only a Bodhisatta."² But already in the Kathāvatthu³ the previous lives of Gotama Buddha and other saints had begun to excite interest and speculation.