Gautama Buddha was an ascetic and spiritual teacher of ancient India who lived during the 6th or 5th century BCE. He was the founder of Buddhism and is revered by Buddhists as a fully enlightened being who taught a path to Nirvana, freedom from ignorance, craving, rebirth and suffering.
Devadatta was by tradition a Buddhist monk, cousin and brother-in-law of Gautama Siddhārtha.
Śrāvaka (Sanskrit) or Sāvaka (Pali) means "hearer" or, more generally, "disciple". This term is used in Buddhism and Jainism. In Jainism, a śrāvaka is any lay Jain so the term śrāvaka has been used for the Jain community itself. Śrāvakācāras are the lay conduct outlined within the treaties by Śvetāmbara or Digambara mendicants. "In parallel to the prescriptive texts, Jain religious teachers have written a number of stories to illustrate vows in practice and produced a rich répertoire of characters.".
In Buddhism, kammaṭṭhāna is a Pali word which literally means place of work. Its original meaning was someone's occupation but this meaning has developed into several distinct but related usages all having to do with Buddhist meditation.
The four stages of awakening in Early Buddhism and Theravada are four progressive stages culminating in full awakening (Bodhi) as an Arahant.
Ajahn Maha Bua was a Thai Buddhist monk. He was thought by many of his followers to be an arahant. He was a disciple of the esteemed forest master Ajahn Mun Bhuridatta, and was himself considered a master in the Thai Forest Tradition. Following the death of Ajahn Thate in 1994, he was considered to be the Ajahn Yai of the Thai Forest Tradition lineage until his death in 2011.
In Buddhism, a sotāpanna (Pali), śrotāpanna, "stream-enterer", "stream-winner", or "stream-entrant" is a person who has seen the Dharma and thereby has dropped the first three fetters that bind a being to a possible rebirth in one of the three lower realms, namely self-view (sakkāya-ditthi), clinging to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāsa), and skeptical indecision (Vicikitsa).
In English translations of Buddhist texts, householder denotes a variety of terms. Most broadly, it refers to any layperson, and most narrowly, to a wealthy and prestigious familial patriarch. In contemporary Buddhist communities, householder is often used synonymously with laity, or non-monastics.
Channa - The Divine Charioteer was a royal servant and head charioteer of Prince Siddhartha, who was to become the Buddha. Channa later became a disciple of the Buddha and achieved arahantship, as is described in the 78th verse of the Dhammapada.
The miracles of Gautama Buddha refers to supernatural feats and abilities attributed to Gautama Buddha by the Buddhist scriptures. The feats are mostly attributed to supranormal powers gained through meditation, rather than divine miracles. Supranormal powers the historic Buddha was said to have possessed and exercised include the six higher knowledges (abhiññā): psychic abilities (iddhi-vidhā), clairaudience (dibba-sota), telepathy (ceto-pariya), recollection of one's own past lives (pubbe-nivāsanussati), seeing the past lives and rebirths of others (dibba-cakkhu), and the extinction of mental intoxicants (āsavakkhaya). Miracles found in Mahayana sutras generally play a more direct role in illustrating certain doctrines than miracles found in non-Mahayana Buddhist texts.
Ānantarika-karma (Sanskrit) or ānantarika-kamma (Pāli) is a heinous crime that through karmic process brings immediate disaster. They are called 'anantarika' because they are 'a-' 'antara' (interval), in other words the results immediately come to fruition in the next life, i.e. the participant goes straight to hell. These are considered so heinous that even non-Buddhists must avoid them. According to Buddhism, committing such a crime would prevent the perpetrator from attaining the stages of sotāpanna, sakadagami, anāgāmi or arhat in that lifetime. The five crimes are:
Kaundinya, also known as Ājñātakauṇḍinya, Pali: Añña Koṇḍañña),who was one of the first five Buddhist monks (Pancavaggiya), follower of Gautama Buddha and the first to become an arhat. He lived during the 6th century BCE in what are now Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, India. According to traditional accounts, at the time of Gautama Buddha's birth, he predicted his future destination as an enlightened teacher.
Assaji was one of the first five arahants of Gautama Buddha. He is known for his conversion of Sariputta and Mahamoggallana, the Buddha's two chief male disciples, counterparts to the nuns Khema and Uppalavanna, the chief female disciples. He lived in what is now Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in northern India, during the 6th century BCE.
Anuruddha was one of the ten principal disciples and a cousin of Gautama Buddha.
Bhadda Kapilani was a Buddhist bhikkhuni and a leading disciple of Gautama Buddha. She came of a Brahman family of the Kosiya clan at Sagala, modern day Sialkot in Punjab, Pakistan. Among the bhikkhunis she was regarded as the foremost in analysing the previous reincarnations of beings and their previous karma, as described in the Jataka of the Pali Canon. Before they both entered the sangha, she was the wife of Mahakassapa, the arahant who led the sangha after the paranibbana of the Buddha and his two chief disciples Sariputta and Mahamoggallana.
Bhadda Kundalakesa was a former Jain ascetic who was converted to Buddhism by Sariputra, one of the two chief disciples of Gautama Buddha. She attained arahantship faster than any other nun and lived in the 6th century BCE in what is now Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in India.
The Buddha was born into a noble family in Lumbini in 563 BCE as per historical events and 624 BCE according to Buddhist tradition. He was called Siddhartha Gautama in his childhood. His father was king Śuddhodana, leader of the Shakya clan in what was the growing state of Kosala, and his mother was queen Maya. According to Buddhist legends, the baby exhibited the marks of a great man. A prophecy indicated that, if the child stayed at home, he was destined to become a world ruler. If the child left home, however, he would become a universal spiritual leader. To make sure the boy would be a great king and world ruler, his father isolated him in his palace and he was raised by his mother's younger sister, Mahapajapati Gotami, after his mother died just seven days after childbirth.
In Buddhism, an arhat or arahant is one who has gained insight into the true nature of existence and has achieved Nibbana and liberated from the endless cycle of rebirth. Mahayana Buddhist traditions have used the term for people far advanced along the path of Enlightenment, but who may not have reached full Buddhahood.
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha, "the awakened one".
A bhikkhunī or bhikṣuṇī is a fully ordained female monastic in Buddhism. Male monastics are called bhikkhus. Both bhikkhunis and bhikkhus live by the Vinaya, a set of rules. Until recently, the lineages of female monastics only remained in Mahayana Buddhism and thus are prevalent in countries such as China, Korea, Taiwan and Vietnam but a few women have taken the full monastic vows in the Theravada and Vajrayana schools over the last decade. From conservative perspectives, none of the contemporary bhikkuni ordinations in Thailand or Tibet are valid.
