Bodhisattva
In Mahayana Buddhism, bodhisattva is the Sanskrit term for anyone who, motivated by great compassion, has generated bodhicitta, which is a spontaneous wish to attain buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. Bodhisattvas are a popular subject in Buddhist art.
Origins and outlines
In early Indian Buddhism, the term bodhisattva was primarily used to refer specifically to Gautama Buddha in his former life. The Jataka tales, which are the stories of the Buddha's lives, depict the various attempts of the bodhisattva to embrace qualities like self-sacrifice and morality.
From this Jataka tales, Bodhisattva originally meant the Buddhism practitioner of austerities that surpassed Śrāvakayana and Pratyekabuddhayana by far and completed Bodhisattvayana. Mount Potalaka, for example, is one of Bodhisattvayana. The name for practitioners who do not yet reach Bodhisattvayana was not fixed, but the terms Śrāvaka-Bodhisattva (聲聞菩薩) or Pratyekabuddha-Bodhisattva (縁覚菩薩) already appear in Āgama which is sutras of early Indian Buddhism.
