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Sanskrit: śrāvaka श्रावक
Pali: sāvaka सावक
Chinese: shēngwén 聲聞
Tibetan: nyan thos ཉན་ཐོས།
Definition
A śrāvaka is literally a “hearer” of the Buddha’s teachings. In Buddhism, this term refers to a direct disciple of the Buddha, one who aims to attain personal liberation by listening to the Buddha’s teachings and following the path of an arhat. Śrāvakas are often contrasted with bodhisattvas in the Mahāyāna due to their focus on personal liberation rather than universal enlightenment.
Significance
Buddhist texts depict śrāvakas as foundational figures in the dissemination of the Buddha’s teachings. Their role in early Buddhist communities was that of preserving and transmitting the Dharma through aural recitation of the Buddha’s words. The śrāvaka path emphasizes the attainment of arhathood, where an individual attains nirvāṇa through their own efforts. This path is described in contrast to the Mahāyāna path, which idealizes the bodhisattva’s altruistic intention to attain buddhahood for the sake of all beings. Texts like the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra highlight this contrast by illustrating the potential for śrāvakas to become bodhisattvas.
Historically, then, the term śrāvaka developed as a designation for the early followers of the Buddha. The emergence of the Mahāyāna movement introduced a novel narrative. In the Mahāyāna sūtras, despite their prodigious memory and meditation skills, śrāvakas are portrayed as a category of disciples of limited capacities. This distinction was not just doctrinal but also geographical, reflecting the spread of Buddhism from India to other regions, where Mahāyāna traditions became more prominent. For instance, the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa Sūtra offers particular portraits of śrāvakas like Śāriputra. Although Śāriputra was the wisest of the Buddha’s direct disciples, he would still struggle to comprehend the profound, perfect wisdom of the bodhisattva Vimalakīrti. The Vimalakīrtinirdeśa puts forward the Mahāyāna critique of the śrāvaka path as comparatively narrow. Indeed, śrāvakas are known to be part of the Hīnayāna or “lesser vehicle” in Mahāyāna discourse.
Various aspects of the śrāvaka category are portrayed in Mahāyāna scriptures, where śrāvakas often serve as interlocutors in the Buddha’s discourses. For example, in the Lotus Sutra the Buddha prophesies the future buddhahood of several prominent śrāvakas. According to this scripture, even those on the limited path of personal liberation have the potential to embrace great compassion, the hallmark of the bodhisattva path. Stories about the śrāvakas, then, are crucial for understanding the rhetoric of the Mahāyāna. Early on in the Mahāyāna, the śrāvaka becomes the category through which aspiring bodhisattvas are capable of imagining a different path. Having become the “other” against which bodhisattvas formulate a “self” for their own category, śrāvakas embody mainstream Buddhism and its emphasis on aural culture. Bodhisattvas see in them the potential for enlightenment in all beings, regardless of their initial path.
In summary, the term śrāvaka conveys the early Buddhist ideal of liberation through hearing the Buddha’s teachings. Over time, it came to represent a key figure in the Mahāyāna critique of earlier traditions and the aspect of integration of different paths into a single path to buddhahood.
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