Concept
Bodhisattva
Overview
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, bodhi (meaning ‘awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or bodhi in order to compassionately help other individuals reach Buddhahood.
In the Early Buddhist schools, as well as modern Theravāda Buddhism, bodhisattva (or bodhisatta) refers to someone who has made a resolution to become a Buddha and has also received a confirmation or prediction from a living Buddha that this will come to pass. In Theravāda Buddhism, the bodhisattva is mainly seen as an exceptional and rare individual. Only a few select individuals are ultimately able to become bodhisattvas, such as Maitreya.
In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a bodhisattva refers to anyone who has generated bodhicitta, a spontaneous wish and compassionate mind to attain Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. Mahayana bodhisattvas are spiritually heroic persons that work to attain awakening and are driven by a great compassion (mahākaruṇā). These beings are exemplified by important spiritual qualities such as the "four divine abodes" (brahmavihāras) of loving-kindness (maitrī), compassion (karuṇā), empathetic joy (muditā) and equanimity (upekṣā), as well as the various bodhisattva "perfections" (pāramitās), which include prajñāpāramitā ("transcendent knowledge" or "perfection of wisdom") and skillful means (upāya).
Mahāyāna Buddhism generally understands the bodhisattva path as being open to everyone, and Mahāyāna Buddhists encourage all individuals to become bodhisattvas. Spiritually advanced bodhisattvas such as Avalokiteshvara, Maitreya, and Manjushri are also widely venerated across the Mahāyāna Buddhist world and are believed to possess great magical power, which they employ to help all living beings.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Bodhisattva is discussed.
As they thus went away, the Bodhisattva arose and walked after them. At a distance of thirty paces from the tree, a deva gave him the grass of lucky omen, which he received and went on. After he had proceeded fifteen paces, five hundred green birds came flying towards him, went round him thrice, and disappeared. The Bodhisattva went forward to the patra tree, placed the kusa grass at the foot of it, and sat down…
Confucius, Chinese literature
names the idea; opens on it
In the opening and shutting of his gates of heaven, cannot he do so as a female bird? While his intelligence reaches in every direction, cannot he (appear to) be without knowledge? 3. (The Tao) produces (all things) and nourishes them; it produces them and does not claim them as its own; it does all, and yet does not boast of it; it presides over all, and yet does not control them. This is what is called 'The…
Laozi, The Tao Teh King
states what it is
Other methods of deliverance from evil are in the excessive acts of penance performed by the Indians, to which a retreat within themselves is added. Now when the Indian thus internally collects himself, and retreats within his own thoughts, the moment of such pure concentration is called Brahma, the one and the clearly supersensuous state, which the understanding calls the highest possible existence. When this is so…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy
states what it is
Again, what reaches unto its Perfector and attaches itself to Him is safe against corruption, all the more so if even during disconnection from Him it has not undergone corruption. Wherefore the soul after death shall ever remain and continue unwavering [and undying] and attached to this noble essence, which is called generic universal mind, and in the language of the lawgivers the Divine Knowledge. As to the other…
Avicenna, A Compendium on the Soul
states what it is
The higher life which belongs to this sphere, this supreme enjoyment of truth, which as feeling is called "blessedness," and as conscious thought "contemplation," we may describe generically as the life known to religion. For religion is just this universal domain[184], in virtue of which the _one_ concrete totality of the World comes to each man in union with himself, as his essential substance, while it remains no…
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 1
states what it is
Philosophers who discussed Bodhisattva
Related ideas
- Prajñā (Buddhism)
- Ashoka
- Mahayana-sutra-alamkara-karika
- Sentient beings (Buddhism)
- Heracles
- Hinayana
- Pure Land
- Nirvana (Buddhism)
- Prajnaparamita
- Vaibhāṣika
- Haribhadra (Buddhist philosopher)
- Japan
- Hagiography
- Spirit (animating force)
- Sarvastivada
- Walpola Rahula Thera
- Saṃsāra
- Buddhahood
- Bhakti
- Moksha
- Kleshas (Buddhism)
- Āgama (Buddhism)
- Majjhima Nikāya
- Vishnu
Place in the tradition
Part of Buddhist philosophy.