476 ARHAT
ject are annotated in Louise Bäckman’s and my Studies in PLACE IN BUDDHIST SOTERIOLOGY. In its most typical usage
Lapp Shamanism (Stockholm, 1978).
There is no similar survey of scholarly contributions in tsarist and
Soviet Russia, except the studies of shamanism. Some points
of view on Soviet studies are presented in I. S. Gurvich’s “An
Ethnographic Study of Cultural Parallels among the Aborigi-
nal Populations of Northern Asia and Northern North
America,” Arctic Anthropology 16 (1979): 32–38. The com-
prehensive areal works by Uno Holmberg Harva and Ivar
Paulson contain some introductory remarks, but no more.
The student has to go to the separate books and articles, most
of them published in Russian, but some in western European
languages: this applies, of course, first of all to the works of
scholars residing in western Europe and America. No collo-
cation of all this scholarship has ever been done.
The same applies to the split publications on Inuit religion. The
total research contribution has not yet been evaluated. See,
however, the short introduction to the subject by Ivar Paul-
son, Karl Jettmar, and me in Les religions arctiques et finnoises
(Paris, 1965), pp. 346f.
ÅKE HULTKRANTZ (1987)
ARHAT. The Sanskrit term arhat (Pali, arahant) derives
from the root arh (arhati) and literally means “worthy” or
“deserving.” The term is especially important in Theravāda
Buddhism, where it denotes the highest state of spiritual de-
velopment, but it also has pre-Buddhist and non-Buddhist
applications.
HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE TERM. In Vedic and
non-Vedic contexts, the noun arhat and the verb arhati ap-
plied generally to persons or gods whose particular status
earned for them the characterization of “worthy” or “deserv-
ing of merit.” The terms also denoted “being able to do,” or
“being capable of doing.” For example, in R: gveda 1.94.1
Agni is addressed in a song of praise as “the worthy one”
(arhat). The term arhat does not appear in the Upanis: ads,
but the verb arhati occurs there five times with the sense of
“being able.” The ten occurrences of the verb in the
Bhagavadgı̄tā convey a similar general meaning.
In the Jain sūtras the term is often used in a sense closer
to that found in Buddhist writings. Here the arhat is de-
scribed as one who is free from desire, hatred, and delusion,
who knows everything, and who is endowed with miraculous
powers. While these characterizations are consistent with the
Buddhist use of the term, it should be noted that the Jains
applied the word exclusively to the tı̄rtham: karas or revealers
of religion, whereas in Buddhism arhatship is an ideal to be
attained by all serious religious strivers, especially monks and
nuns.
In the Pali scriptures of Theravāda Buddhism arahant/
arahati shares with Vedic, Hindu, and Jain sources the same
general meanings “worthy, able, fit.” In a more specific
usage, but one that is not yet part of the most prevalent for-
mulas found in the Sutta and Vinaya Pit: akas, the term is ap-
plied to those who have supernatural powers or who practice
austerities.
in Theravāda Buddhism, however, the term arahant signifies
persons who have reached the goal of enlightenment or
nibbāna (Skt., nirvān: a). In the Pali canon the arahant
emerges not simply as the revealer of the religion or the per-
son worthy of receiving gifts but as one who has attained
freedom of mind and heart, has overcome desire and passion,
has come to true knowledge and insight, has crossed over the
flood (of sam: sāra) and gone beyond (pāragata), has destroyed
the āsavas (deadly attachments to the world), is versed in the
threefold knowledge (tevijja) of past, present, and future, has
achieved the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment, and who
has attained nibbāna.
In the Vinaya, the concept of the arahant appears to be
connected with the concept of uttarimanussa (“further being,
superhuman being”). Here, the arahant is said to possess one
or more of the four trance states (jhāna), one or more of the
four stages of sanctification, mastery of the threefold knowl-
edge and the sixfold knowledge (chal: abhiññā), which in-
cludes knowledge of previous rebirths, and to have achieved
the destruction of the āsavas, or “cankers.” Indeed, it may
be that the notion of uttarimanussa constitutes the earliest
beginning of a more elaborated and refined concept desig-
nated by the term arahant.
It is in the Nikāyas, however, that the concept of the
arahant achieves its mature form. In the first volume of the
Dı̄gha Nikāya ten of the thirteen suttas deal almost entirely
with this theme; the other three are indirectly related to it.
In these texts arhatship is extolled as the highest of social
ranks, the only form of sacrifice worth making, the best as-
ceticism, and the true form of brahmacariya (Skt., brahma-
carya). Clearly, the term arahant signifies the Buddhist trans-
valuation of terms applied to the most worthwhile aspects of
life. In the Majjhima Nikāya the arahant is said to recognize
things as they really are, to have eliminated the āsavas, to be
far removed from evil, and to be beyond birth, decay, and
death.
There are several arahant formulas in the Pali Tipitaka.
Perhaps the best known is the following:
Rebirth has been destroyed. The higher life has been
fulfilled. What had to be done has been accomplished.
After this present life there will be no beyond. (Dı̄gha
Nikāya 1.84 and elsewhere)
Other formulas emphasize the attainment of the emancipa-
tion of mind, the transcendence of rebirth, the realization of
jhanic states, knowledge of the Four Truths, the overcoming
of the āsavas, and the gaining of salvation and perfect knowl-
edge. The term also appears in the formulaic phrase charac-
terizing the Buddha: “A Tathagata arises in the world, an ar-
ahant, a fully enlightened one perfect in knowledge and
conduct, a wellfarer, a world-knower, unsurpassed driver of
men to be driven, a teacher of devas [gods] and mankind,
A Buddha, an Exalted One.”
Arhatship figures prominently into the Theravāda no-
tion that the salvific journey is a gradual path (magga) in
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION

which one moves from the condition of ordinary worldly at-
tachments governed by ignorant sense desires to a state of lib-
eration characterized by utter equanimity and the knowledge
of things as they are. As Buddhagosa put it in his Visuddhi-
magga (Path of purification), the classic synopsis of
Theravāda doctrine, the arahant has completed all of the pu-
rities derived through the observance of the moral precepts
(sı̄la), meditational practice (jhāna), and the purity of knowl-
edge (paññā-visuddhi). The sine qua non of this path is medi-
tation, which leads to extraordinary cognitive states and
stages of consciousness (jhāna) and, allegedly, to the acquisi-
tion of various supernormal “powers” (iddhi). These attain-
ments became fundamental to the cult of saints, an impor-
tant aspect of popular Theravāda Buddhist practice. This
popular aspect of arhatship has not always been easy to rec-
oncile with the classical notion, which emphasizes the acqui-
sition of what Buddhaghosa refers to as the “analytical
knowledges,” for example, the analysis of reality in terms of
its conditioned and co-arising nature (pat:icca-samuppāda;
Skt., pratı̄tya-samutpāda).
Both the Therāvada Kathavātthu (Points of controversy)
and Vasumitra’s Samayabhedoparacanacakra (History of the
schisms, a Sarvāstivāda work) give ample evidence that dur-
ing the first few centuries following the death of the Buddha
there were frequent disputes within the order concerning the
nature and attributes of the arhat. The greatest challenge to
the arhat ideal, however, came from the Mahāyāna tradition,
which proclaimed the career of the bodhisattva to be superior
to that of the arhat. Texts such as the Saddharmapun: darı̄ka
and Vimalakı̄rti Sūtras criticize the arhat for pursuing, in
their view, an unacceptably self-centered soteriological path.
THE ARHAT AS CULT FIGURE. In popular Buddhism the
arhat has become a figure endowed with magical and apotro-
paic powers. In Myanmar, the arahant Shin Thiwali (Pali,
Sivali), declared by the Buddha to be the foremost recipient
of gifts among his disciples, is believed to bring prosperity
and good fortune to those who petition him. The arahant
Upagupta, who tamed Māra and converted him to Bud-
dhism, is thought to have the power to prevent storms and
floods as well as other kinds of physical violence and unwant-
ed chaos. Customarily, Buddhist festivals in Myanmar and
northern Thailand are initiated by an offering to Upagupta
in order to guarantee the success of the event. In Myanmar,
offerings are made to the Buddha and the eight arahants
(Sāriputta, Moggallāna, Ānanda, Revata, Upāli, Kon: d: añña,
Rāhula, and Gavampati) as part of a long-life engendering
ceremony in which each arahant is associated with one of the
eight days of the Myanmar week and with a special planet.
Pin: d: ola Bhāradvāja, one of the sixteen great arhats (Chin.,
luohan), was particularly venerated as the guardian saint of
monasteries’ refectories in China and Japan (where he is
known as Binzuru), and was also worshiped as a popular
healing saint.
The arhat, as one who has realized the summum bonum
of the spiritual path, is worshiped on the popular level as a
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION, SECOND EDITION
ARHAT 477
field of merit (puny aks: etra) and source of magical, protective
power. Some, such ¯ as Upagupta and Pin: d: ola, became in ef-
fect protective deities believed to have the power to prevent
violence and illness. Offerings to their images or symbolic
representations of their presence constitute cultic practice in
both domestic and public rituals. However, arhats other than
those associated with the Buddha during his lifetime or the
sixteen arhats enumerated in Nandimitra’s Record of the
Abiding of the Dharma (T.D. no. 2030) have served as
sources of power. Claims of arhatship are continuously being
made on behalf of holy monks in countries such as Sri Lanka,
Myanmar, and Thailand. Devoted laypersons seek them out
for boons and wear protective amulets bearing their image
or charred remains of their hair or robe. They may be vener-
ated as wizards (Burm., weikza) with magical skills in alche-
my, trance, and the like. Elaborate hagiographies tell of ex-
traordinary natural signs announcing their birth and detail
careers characterized by the performance of miraculous
deeds. Their monasteries, in turn, may become holy pilgrim-
age centers both during and after their lifetime.
In short, the arhat embodies one of the fundamental
tensions in the Buddhist tradition between the ideal of en-
lightenment and equanimity and the extraordinary magical
power concomitant with this attainment. This tension, while
present in the texts, is further heightened in the light of pop-
ular Buddhist attitudes and practices regarding the figure of
the arhat.
SEE ALSO Bodhisattva Path; Mahāsiddhas; Nirvān: a; Perfect-
ibility; Soteriology; Tı̄rtham: karas.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The classic study of the arahant in the Theravāda tradition is
I. B. Horner’s The Early Buddhist Theory of Man Perfected
(London, 1936). In more recent years both historians of reli-
gion and anthropologists have studied the Buddhist saint.
Nathan Katz has compared the arahant concept in the Sutta
Pit: aka to the concepts of the bodhisattva and mahāsiddha in
the Mahāyāna and Tantrayāna traditions in his book, Bud-
dhist Images of Human Perfection (New Delhi, 1982). George
D. Bond’s “The Problems of ‘Sainthood’ in the Theravāda
Buddhist Tradition,” in Sainthood in World Religions, edited
by George Bond and Richard Kieckhefer (Berkeley, Calif.,
1984), provides a general analysis of the Theravāda arahant
while Michael Carrithers’s The Forest Monks of Sri Lanka
(New York, 1983), and Stanley J. Tambiah’s The Buddhist
Saints of the Forest and the Cult of Amulets (Cambridge, U.K.,
1984) offer anthropological analyses of the Theravāda saint
in the contexts of modern Sri Lanka and Thailand, respec-
tively. John S. Strong provides a reminder that the arhat re-
ceives approbation in the Mahāyāna as well as the Therāvada
tradition in “The Legend of the Lion-Roarers: A Study of the
Buddhist Arhat Pin: d: ola Bhāradvāja,” Numen 26 (June
1979): 50–87.
New Sources
Buswell, Robert E., and Robert M. Gimello. Paths to Liberation:
The Marga and Its Transformation in Buddhist Thought. Ho-
nolulu, 1992.
Dhaky, M. A. Arhat Parsva and Dharanendra Nexus. Delhi, 1997.