The History of Buddhist Thought c19.88

c19.88

The essential name is Buddha, “the enlightened.” Jina, “conqueror,” is also found, but the Jains have adopted it as the special title of their own leaders. The name Tathāgata occurs as the name by which Buddha refers to himself. The derivation is not quite certain, for it might mean either “thus gone” (tathā-gata) or “thus come” (tathā-āgata), but similar compounds like su-gata (well-gone) and samyag-gata (duly gone) make the former the more probable. The word is quite clear in its literal meaning of “having arrived at such a state”. Patiṃ dṛṣṭvā tathāgataṃ, “having seen her husband reduced to such a condition,” is said of Damayantī in the Mahābhārata. Buddhaghosa analyses the word in both ways, and explains it as “having come (and having gone) like the former Buddhas”, i.e. having acquired the same qualities and performed the same essential actions. But Buddhaghosa goes on to take another meaning of tathā. If a thing is thus or so, it is opposed to what is not so, what is wrong, or perverse, vitatha. Hence an adjective tatha, “true,” has been evolved, and Buddhaghosa, starting from this, finds six other meanings in it. There is no doubt that for the devout Buddhist all the meanings are there. We can, therefore, admit that “he who has won truth” fairly represents one meaning which the later Buddhists found in it, but this meaning has been deduced from tathāgata, and it cannot be proved that this, and not tathāgata, was the original form.¹ There is no doubt that the Mahāvastu (ii, 266) understood it in its primary meaning, where it makes Kāla, the Nāga king, thus address Gotama on the day of his enlightenment: