Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c8.s2.t3.42

c8.s2.t3.42

The stage next to Puthujjana is Gotrabhū, corresponding in some respects to the Gotravihāra of the Bodhisattvabhūmi.⁴ The Gotrabhū represents the last state of a puthujjana, for a person becomes gotrabhū when he is just fit to commence the works which make a person an ariya. The Paṭisambhidāmagga⁵ takes gotrabhū not only as a stage prior to sotāpanna but also as indicating a class of persons who are on the way to arhathood and may be in possession of one of the eight maggas and phalas. Likewise the Abhidhammatthasaṅgaha⁶ places the Gotrabhū stage after Paṭipadā-ñāṇadassana-visuddhi (the purity of insight with regard to the path)⁷ and Vuṭṭhānagāminivipassanā-ñāṇam (discernment leading to uplift) and makes the Gotrabhū an ariya, i.e. a sotāpattimaggattha. In the two works mentioned last, Gotrabhū denotes those persons, who are on the path and are entitled to become Arhats, and hence persons in any one of the three stages, sotāpatti, sakadāgāmi, and anāgāmi.¹ The Aṅguttara Nikāya² and the Puggala Paññatti,³ however, do not consider the Gotrabhū an ariya and hence they distinguish Gotrabhū as a stage preceding the Sotāpattimagga.