Word.ws English Dictionary

Bodhisattwa

Bodhisattwa is the archaic form of bodhisattva.

Meaning of bodhisattva

Noun

bodhisattva (plural bodhisattvas)

  1. A person who has taken specific lay or monastic vows and who is on the road to perfect knowledge; specifically, one who foregoes personal nirvana in order to help others achieve enlightenment.
    • Kimi was a true bodhisattva, and her English skills were excellent.2021, Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness, Canongate Books (2022), page 414
  2. An enlightened being existing in a form of existence beyond the ordinary forms of physical reality understood and acknowledged by scientific thought, resembling the Western notion of angels, but with a wealth of its own nuances and expectations. These include the compassionate working for enlightenment of all sentient beings.

Forms of Bodhisattwa

pluralBodhisattwas

Questions about Bodhisattwa

What is Bodhisattwa the archaic form of?
Bodhisattwa is the archaic form of bodhisattva.

Words near Bodhisattwa in the dictionary

  1. bodhisats
  2. bodhisattva
  3. bodhisattva vows
  4. bodhisattvahood
  5. bodhisattvas
  6. Bodhisattwa
  7. Bodhisattwas
  8. bodhisvatta
  9. bodhisvattas
  10. bodhran
  11. bodhranist

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Bodhisattwa (page history and authors); bodhisattva (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “Bodhisattwa.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bodhisattwa. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.