Buddha

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Buddha \Bud"dha\, n. [Skr. buddha wise, sage, 'the enlightened'
     fr. budh to know.]
     1. The title of an incarnation of self-abnegation, virtue,
        and wisdom.
        [1913 Webster]
  


     2. The title of Siddhartha or Gautama, a deified religious
        teacher of the Buddhists and the founder of Buddhism;
        called also {Gautama Siddartha} or {Sakya Sinha} (or
        Muni). From three newly discovered inscriptions of the
        emperor Asoka it follows that the 37th year of his reign
        was reckoned as the 257th from the death of Buddha. Hence
        it is inferred that Buddha died between 482 and 472 B. C.
        It being agreed that he lived to be eighty, he was born
        between 562 and 552 B. C. The Buddhist narratives of his
        life are overgrown with legend and myth. Senart seeks to
        trace in them the history of the sun-hero. Oldenberg finds
        in the most ancient traditions -- those of Ceylon -- at
        least definite historical outlines. Siddhartha, as Buddha
        was called before entering upon his great mission, was
        born in the country and tribe of the Sakhyas, at the foot
        of the Nepalese Himalayas. His father, Suddhodana, was
        rather a great and wealthy landowner than a king. He
        passed his youth in opulence at Kapila-vastu, the Sakhya
        capital. He was married and had a son Rahula, who became a
        member of his order. At the age of twenty-nine he left
        parents, wife, and only son for the spiritual struggle of
        a recluse. After seven years he believed himself possessed
        of perfect truth, and assumed the title of Buddha, 'the
        enlightened.' He is represented as having received a
        sudden illumination as he sat under the Bo-tree, or ' tree
        of knowledge,' at Bodhgaya or Buddha-Gaya. For
        twenty-eight or, as later narratives give it, forty-nine
        days he was variously tempted by Mara. One of his doubts
        was whether to keep for himself the knowledge won, or to
        share it. Love triumphed, and he began to preach, at first
        at Benares. For forty-four years he preached in the region
        of Benares and Behar. Primitive Buddhism is only to be
        gathered by inference from the literature of a later time.
        Buddha did not array himself against the old religion. The
        doctrines were rather the outgrowth of those of certain
        Brahmanical schools. His especial concern was salvation
        from sorrow, and so from existence. There are "four noble
        truths": (1) existence is suffering; (2) the cause of pain
        is desire, (3) cessation of pain is possible through the
        suppression of desire; (4) the way to this is the
        knowledge and observance of the "good law " of Buddha. The
        end is Nirvana, the cessation of existence. Buddhism was
        preached in the vulgar tongue, and had a popular
        literature and an elaborately organized monastic and
        missionary system. It made its way into Afghanistan,
        Bactriana., Tibet, and China. It passed away in India not
        from Brahman persecution, but rather from internal causes,
        such as its too abstract nature, too morbid view of life,
        relaxed discipline, and overgrowth of monasticism, and
        also because Shivaism and Vishnuism employed many of its
        own weapons more effectively. The system has been
        variously modified in dogma and rites in the many
        countries to which it has spread. It is supposed to number
        about 850,000,000 of adherents, who are principally in
        Ceylon, Tibet, China, and Japan.
        [Century Dict. 1906.]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  Buddha
       n 1: founder of Buddhism; worshipped as a god (c 563-483 BC)
            [syn: {the Buddha}, {Siddhartha}, {Gautama}, {Gautama
            Siddhartha}, {Gautama Buddha}]
       2: one who has achieved a state of perfect enlightenment

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  24 Moby Thesaurus words for "Buddha":
     Confucius, Gandhi, Jagannath, Juggernaut, Kurma, Mahavira, Matsya,
     Mentor, Muhammad, Narsinh, Nestor, Parshuram, Plato, Rama,
     Socrates, Solomon, Vaman, Varah, Vardhamana, Zoroaster,
     bodhisattva, the Blessed One, the Lord Buddha, the Teacher