What Does "Tathagata" Mean?

The Buddha often referred to himself as "the Tathāgata". But what does that epithet mean, and where does it come from? I'll look at some scholarly opinions, and then turn to the interesting history of the term.

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✅ Book mentioned
Richard Gombrich, What the Buddha Thought — https://amzn.to/3Ih5DDu

✅ Suttas mentioned:
SN 22.86 Anurādha Sutta https://suttacentral.net/sn22.86/en/s... Wanderers from other sects talk about when a Tathagata describes a Tathagata.
https://suttacentral.net/dn29/en/sujato Wanderers from other sects speculate about Tathagata at DN 29.30.
https://suttacentral.net/mn22/en/sujato
https://suttacentral.net/an4.23/en/su...
https://suttacentral.net/an6.54/en/su...

✅ Other resources:
https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/artic...
http://jayarava.blogspot.com/2009/02/...
https://www.themindingcentre.org/dhar...
Robert Chalmers, “Tathāgata” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1898 01 pp. 103-115. http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EN...
E.J. Thomas, Tathāgata and Tahāgaya.” Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London 8, no. 2/3 (1936): 781–88. http://www.jstor.org/stable/608088
KR Norman, “Seven Pāli Etymologies” in JPTS, XV (1990), 145-54. http://www.palitext.com/
https://www.buddhismuskunde.uni-hambu...

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00:00 Intro
02:00 What does “Tathāgata” mean?
04:01 Andrew Olendzki on Tathāgata
08:09 Richard Gombrich on Tathāgata
09:23 Two historical aspects of the term
09:44 Referred to any enlightened being
12:27 Probably predates Buddhism
13:18 E.J. Thomas and Jainism
14:29 Non-Buddhists in the Anurādha Sutta

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