Tathāgata

Abstract

In Bsos. viii, 781 ff., Mr. E. J. Thomas argues that “Tathagata” may have been taken over by the Buddhist from the Jain Tathāgaya, and that it may be an incorrect Sanskritization of some unknown non-Aryan and non-Dravidian word. This seems very far-fetched. Mr. Thomas does not take any account of possibly Vedic origins, common to Buddhism and Jainism. We have shown incidentally elsewhere that countless Buddhist terms, for example arkat and attā, are purely Vedic, and have argued that the Buddha legend is almost wholly made up of Vedic material with only such modifications as are inevitable when the eternal birth is to be retold in terms of a temporal narrative. We are convinced, in other words, that the Buddha, the “Kinsman of the Sun”, the “Eye of the World”, and “Great Person” of the Pali texts, the Buddha who may be represented in art by a pillar of fire, is an incarnation or descent (avatarana) of the Vedic Agni.