..續本文上一頁171). So the Buddha first of all declares himself to be an arahant. The defining mark of an arahant is the attainment of nirvāṇa in this present life. The word "arahant" was not coined by the Buddha but was current even before he appeared on the Indian religious scene. The word is derived from a verb arahati, meaning "to be worthy," and thus means a person who is truly worthy of veneration and offerings. Among Indian spiritual seekers in the Buddha”s time, the word was used to denote a person who had attained the ultimate goal, for this is what made one worthy of veneration and offerings. From the perspective of the Nikāyas, the ultimate goal — the goal in strict doctrinal terms — is nirvāṇa, and the goal in human terms is arahantship, the state of a person who has attained nirvāṇa in this present life. The Buddha”s enlightenment is significant because it marked the first realization of nirvāṇa within this historical epoch. We might say that the Buddha rises above the horizon of history as an arahant; in his historical manifestation he dawns upon human consciousness as an arahant.

　　After attaining enlightenment, the Buddha makes the path to enlightenment available to many others. Enlightenment is valued because it is the gateway to the ultimate freedom of nirvāṇa. In the Nikāyas, we find several descriptions of the process by which the Buddha attained enlightenment, and there are corresponding texts that describe the disciples” enlightenment in the same terms. In MN 26, the Buddha says that "being myself subject to birth, aging, sickness, and death, I attained the unborn, ageless, sickness-free, deathless, supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna" (MN I 167) A few months later, when he taught the Dhamma to his first five disciples, he says of them: "When those monks were instructed and guided by me, being subject to birth, aging, sickness, and death, they attained the unborn, ageless, sickness-free, deathless, supreme security from bondage, Nibbāna" (MN I 173). Thus the attainment of these monks is described in exactly the same terms that the Buddha uses to describe his own attainment. Again, in several suttas — MN 4, MN 19, MN 36 — the Buddha describes his attainment of enlightenment as involving two main stages. First comes the attainment of the four jhānas. Second, during the three parts of the night, he realized three higher knowledges: the recollection of past lives, the knowledge of the passing away and rebirth of beings according to their karma, and the knowledge of the destruction of the āsavas, the primordial defilements that sustain the round of rebirths. Now several suttas in the same collection, the Majjhima Nikāya, describe the enlightenment of the disciple in just this way: attainment of the four jhānas and realization of the three higher knowledges; see e.g. MN 27, MN 51, MN 53. While it is true that not all disciples attained the jhānas and most probably didn”t attain the first two higher knowledges, these seemed to mark a certain ideal standard within the early Sangha — a standard that the Buddha and the great arahants shared in common.

　　At SN 22:58, the Buddha says that both the Tathāgata and the arahant disciple are alike in being liberated from the five aggregates: form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness. So, what is the difference between them

　　 The answer the Buddha gives points to temporal priority as the distinction: the Tathāgata is the originator of the path, the producer of the path, the one who declares the path. He is the knower of the path, the discoverer of the path, the expounder of the path. His disciples dwell following the path and become possessed of it afterwards. But they both walk the same path and attain the same final goal.

　　Thus the Bu…

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