Originally Posted by JainVeganBuddha
Buddha: An Extraordinary Human Influence/'Leader' who has has an enormous effect on humanity around the world.
Buddha is believed to be an ascetic (wandering 'renounced' spiritualist person) from ancient times who became enlightened by his own quest and karma. Then he taught many people an advanced 'dharma' or cosmic understanding centered around:
-developing wisdom and morality
-careful nonviolence and non-harming--toward every life form,
-maintaining constant calm awareness
-karmic awareness and the path to transcendence of suffering
-an inexpressible subtle teaching pointed to by words such as 'pure', 'serene', 'empty'.
A similar historical figure who was perhaps a contemporary of buddha (or perhaps the same person) was Mahavira. He was the (most recent) enlightened 'Avatar' of Jainism, sometimes known as Jain Buddhism. Mahavira was called the Tirthankara:
In Jainism, a Tirthankar ("Fordmaker") (also Tirthankara or Jina) is a human being who achieves enlightenment (perfect knowledge) through asceticism and who then becomes a role-model teacher for those seeking spiritual guidance. A Tirthankar is a special sort of arhat (someone who has totally conquered anger, pride, deceit, desire, etc.). A Tirthankar is so called because they are the founder of a "Tirth" (lit. 'ford'), a Jain community which acts as a "ford" across the "river of human misery".
After achieving enlightenment, a Tirthankar shows others the path to enlightenment. The Tirthankar's religious teachings form the Jain canons. The inner knowledge of all Tirthankars is perfect and identical in every respect, for the teachings of one Tirthankar do not contradict those of another. However, the degree of elaboration varies according to the spiritual advancement and purity of humans during that period. The higher the spiritual advancement and purity of mind, the lower the elaboration required.
At the end of his human life-span, a Tirthankar achieves liberation ('moksh' or 'nirvan'), ending the cycle of infinite births and deaths.
Jainism states time has no beginning or end. It moves like the wheel of a cart. There have been an infinite number of time cycles before our present era and there will be an infinite number of time cycles after this age. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we are approximately 2,530 years into the fifth era of the present half cycle.
Twenty four Tirthankars are born in each half cycle of time (that is forty eight in each full cycle), in this part of the universe. In our current (descending) half cycle of time, the first Tirthankar Rishabh Dev[citation needed], lived billions of years ago and attained liberation ('moksh' or 'nirvan') towards the end of the third era. The 24th and last Tirthankar was Mahavir Swami (599-527 BC), whose existence is a historically accepted fact. Digambaras believe that all twenty four Tirthankars were men but Svetambaras believe that the 19th Tirthankar, Malli Nath, was a woman.
The next Tirthankar in our part of the universe will be born at the beginning of the third era of the next (ascending) half cycle of time, in approximately 81,500 years.
As Tirthankars direct us to enlightenment, their statues are worshipped in Jain temples by Jains aspiring to achieve enlightenment. Tirthankars are not God or gods. Jainism does not believe in the existence of God in the sense of a creator, and gods are beings superior to humans but, nevertheless, not fully enlightened.
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Tathāgata (pronounced: tāht-āhgatah) in Pali and Sanskrit (Chin., Jap.: 如来） meaning "one who has thus gone" - tathā-gata; "one who has thus come" - tathā-āgata; or " one who has gone to That", Tat-āgata; ) is the name which the historical Buddha Gautama used when referring to himself.[1] The term is deliberately ambiguous, reflecting the ineffable ontological status of a fully liberated human being transcending categories of being and non-being.
Since the word tathāgata is a compound of two parts, different interpretations arise depending on which two parts one separates the word into.
For example, if one takes tathāgata to be composed of Tat and āgata one may conclude the following: Tat (lit. 'that') has from time immemorial in India meant the absolute (in orthodox Hinduism called Brahman), as in the famous Upanishadic dictum: “That thou art” (Tat tvam asi) from the Chandogya Upanishad, a widely discussed spiritual document in the time of the Buddha. “That” here refers to which the muni, or sage, has reached at the pinnacle of his having fulfilled wisdom’s perfection in the attainment of final liberation.
Tathā means 'thus' in Sanskrit and Pali, and Buddhist thought takes this to refer to what is called 'reality as-it-is' (Yathā-bhūta). This reality is also referred to as 'thusness' or 'suchness' (tathatā) indicating simply that it (reality) is what it is. A Buddha or Arhat is defined as someone who 'knows and sees reality as-it-is' (yathā bhūta ñāna dassana).
Gata is the past passive participle of the verbal root gam (going, traveling). Āgata adds the verbal prefix Ā which gives the meaning “come, arrival, gone-unto”. Thus in this interpretation Tathāgata means literally either “(The one who has) gone to suchness” or "(The one who has) arrived at suchness."
Tathāgata is therefore a personal appellation of that very rare someone who has realized by experiential wisdom the nature of things just as they are.
As you can see, there is a strong phonetic similarity between these two titles: tathagata and tirthankara. the Buddha was also known to have stayed and taught at many of the same places in India, suggesting the possibility of multiple outgrowths of spiritual communities based on the same individual.
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