Home › Magazine › Spring 1993 › What's in a Name?

What's in a Name?

Stuart Smithers

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SO MANY DIFFERENT NAMES exist for the Buddha that one might, in the course of perusing ancient texts or contemporary literature, easily assume that Gotama and Gautama and Shakyamuni and Siddhartha were the best of friends .. In fact, among dozens of appellations, these are only the famiial names for the man who became the historical Buddha. Furthermore, questions such as when to use the Pali version or the Sanskrit, or what context is most appropriate or which name, are not confined to etymologIcal conslderations, but are part of a broader process of translating Buddhism into our own cultural alphabet.

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