Gavampati, Gavāmpati, Gavāṃpati, Gavaṃpati: 10 definitions
Introduction:
Gavampati means something in Buddhism, Pali, Hinduism, Sanskrit. If you want to know the exact meaning, history, etymology or English translation of this term then check out the descriptions on this page. Add your comment or reference to a book if you want to contribute to this summary article.
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In Buddhism
Theravada (major branch of Buddhism)
1. Gavampati Thera - An arahant. He was a son of a setthi in Benares, and one of the four lay companions of the Thera Yasa, who, when they heard of Yasas renunciation, imitated him and won arahant ship. Later, Gavampati lived in the Anjanavana at Saketa. One day, when the Buddha visited the Anjanavana, some of the monks accompanying him slept on the sandbanks of the Sarabhu. The river rose in the night and there was great dismay. The Buddha sent Gavampati to stem the flood, which he did by his iddhi power. The water stopped afar off, looking like a mountain peak.
In the time of Sikhi Buddha he was a huntsman and seeing the Buddha offered him flowers. Later he built a parasol and a railing for the thupa of Konagamana. In the time of Kassapa Buddha he was a rich house holder possessed of many cattle. One day he saw an arahant eating his meal in the sun for lack of shade, and built for him a shelter and planted in front of it a sirisa tree. As a result he was born in the Catummaharajika world, and his palace was known as Serissaka. (Vin.i.18f.; Thag.v.38; ThagA.i.103f; VvA.331f; DA.iii.814 gives a slightly different version of the origin of the Serissaka vimana).
Gavampati was the teacher of Mahanaga, son of Madhu Vasettha (ThagA.i.443). It is said that the Serissaka vimana, occupied by Gavampati, remained in the Catummaharajika world even after he had left it. (D.ii.356f; DA.iii.814 says he went there because he found the climate (utu) more agreeable. SNA.i.347 says it was because he, like Pindola bharadvaja, loved his old haunts).
There Gavampati often spent his siesta and held conversations with Payasi, who sent through him a message to the inhabitants of the earth, that they should profit by the example of him (Payasi) and discriminate in the bestowal of their gifts.
The Dulva mentions (Rockhill, p.149f) that after the Buddhas death, when Maha Kassapa wished to hold a Convocation of the chief monks, Punna was sent as a special messenger to summon Gavampati, who was then in the Serissaka vimana. But Gavampati did not attend, his death being imminent. Instead he sent his bowl and three robes as a gift to the Sangha.
Immediately afterwards he died, and Punna carried out his funeral rites.
Gavampati is evidently identical with Girinelapujaka of the Apadana (ii.457).
See also Gavampati Sutta below.
2. Gavampati - The Sasanavamsa (p.36f) speaks of a Thera by this name, at whose request the Buddha went to Sudhammapura in the Ramanna country to establish his religion. In a previous life Gavampati was born of an egg laid by a Naga maiden who had relations with a vijja dhara. The egg was hatched and a child was born, but it died at the age of ten and was reborn at Mithila as Gavampati. He joined the Order at the age of seven and became an arahant.
Theravāda is a major branch of Buddhism having the the Pali canon (tipitaka) as their canonical literature, which includes the vinaya-pitaka (monastic rules), the sutta-pitaka (Buddhist sermons) and the abhidhamma-pitaka (philosophy and psychology).
Mahayana (major branch of Buddhism)
Gavāmpati (गवाम्पति), one of the heroes of the first council, before settling permanently in the vimāna of the Śirīṣa, went to the pratyanta-janapada or frontier countries, i.e., Suvarṇabhūmi, by the Buddha’s order (Ken pen chouo… tsa che), and to believe the Karmavibhaṅga, which claims that, in the Land of Gold, the saint Gavāmpati converted the population for a hundred leagues.
According to the Burmese tradition: “King Thiri-Matauka had been informed that, after the death of Gaudama, a Rahan named Gambawatti (Gavāmpati) had brought thirty-two teeth of the Buddha and placed them in a dzedi (caitya) on Mount Ind-Danou north-west of Thatum (in Pāli, capital of Burma, between the mouths of the Sittang and the Salouen)”.
Even today, Gavāmpati, under the name Gavompade, is one of the favorite saints of the Mons and the Talaing sof Burma.
Mahayana (महायान, mahāyāna) is a major branch of Buddhism focusing on the path of a Bodhisattva (spiritual aspirants/ enlightened beings). Extant literature is vast and primarely composed in the Sanskrit language. There are many sūtras of which some of the earliest are the various Prajñāpāramitā sūtras.
Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana or tantric Buddhism)
Gavāmpati (गवाम्पति) is the name of a Śrāvaka mentioned as attending the teachings in the 6th century Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa: one of the largest Kriyā Tantras devoted to Mañjuśrī (the Bodhisattva of wisdom) representing an encyclopedia of knowledge primarily concerned with ritualistic elements in Buddhism. The teachings in this text originate from Mañjuśrī and were taught to and by Buddha Śākyamuni in the presence of a large audience (including Gavāmpati).
Tibetan Buddhism includes schools such as Nyingma, Kadampa, Kagyu and Gelug. Their primary canon of literature is divided in two broad categories: The Kangyur, which consists of Buddha’s words, and the Tengyur, which includes commentaries from various sources. Esotericism and tantra techniques (vajrayāna) are collected indepently.
Languages of India and abroad
Sanskrit dictionary
Gavāṃpati (गवांपति).—
1) The chief cattle, a bull.
2) A cowherd.
3) An epithet of the sun; also of fire.
Derivable forms: gavāṃpatiḥ (गवांपतिः).
Gavāṃpati (गवांपति).—(= Pali Gavampati), (1) name of a disciple of Buddha: Mahāvyutpatti 1051; Saddharmapuṇḍarīka 2.4; Lalitavistara 1.10 (see s.v. Yaśodeva); (Ārya-)Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa 111.12; Sukhāvatīvyūha 92.8; Karmavibhaṅga (and Karmavibhaṅgopadeśa) 62.3; (2) name of a nāga- king: Kāraṇḍavvūha 2.10 (compare 2 Gavampati, in Malalasekara (Dictionary of Pali Proper Names), who had once been born to a nāga girl).
1) Gavāmpati (गवाम्पति):—[=gavām-pati] [from gavām > gav] m. (gavām pati, [Taittirīya-brāhmaṇa iii]) ‘cow-lord’, a bull, [Mahābhārata iii, 11737; iv, 588]
2) [v.s. ...] ‘lord of rays’, Name of the sun, [iii, 192]
3) [v.s. ...] of Agni, 14182
4) [v.s. ...] of a snake demon, [Kāraṇḍa-vyūha i, 18]
5) [v.s. ...] of a, [Buddhist literature] mendicant, [Lalita-vistara i, 6 f.; Saddharma-puṇḍarīka i.]
Gavāṃpati (गवांपति):—(gavām, gen. pl. von go, + pati) m.
1) Hüter der Kühe, Kuhhirt [Mahābhārata 4, 588.] —
2) Herr der Rinder, Stier: siṃheneva gavāṃpatim (pātitam) [Mahābhārata 3, 11737.] —
3) Gebieter der Strahlen, Beiname der Sonne [Mahābhārata 3, 192.] Agni's [14182.] —
4) Nomen proprium eines buddhist. Bhikṣu [Vyutpatti oder Mahāvyutpatti 32.] [Lalitavistara 1, 11.] [Lot. de Lassen’s Anthologie b. l. 1. 295.] [Lebensbeschreibung Śākyamuni’s 248(18).] — Braucht in den drei ersten Bedd. nicht als comp. aufgefasst zu werden. Vgl. gopati .
Gavāṃpati (गवांपति):—m. —
1) Stier [Mahābhārata 4,19,32.] —
2) Herr der Strahlen , Beiw. der Sonne und Agni's. —
3) Nomen proprium — a) eines Schlangendämons [Kāraṇḍavyūha 2,10.] — b) eines buddh. Bettlers. — gavāṃ patiḥ [Taittirīya brāhmaṇa (Roth). 3,1,1,7.]
Sanskrit, also spelled संस्कृतम् (saṃskṛtam), is an ancient language of India commonly seen as the grandmother of the Indo-European language family (even English!). Closely allied with Prakrit and Pali, Sanskrit is more exhaustive in both grammar and terms and has the most extensive collection of literature in the world, greatly surpassing its sister-languages Greek and Latin.
Pali-English dictionary
1) gavampati (ဂဝမ္ပတိ) [(pu) (ပု)]—
[go+pati]
[ဂေါ+ပတိ]
2) gavaṃpati (ဂဝံပတိ) [(pu) (ပု)]—
[go+pati]
[ဂေါ+ပတိ]
[Pali to Burmese]
1) gavampati—
(Burmese text): (၁) ဂဝံပတိမည်သူ။ (၂) နွားတို့၏-အရှင်-အကြီးအမှူး၊ နွားလား။
(Auto-Translation): (1) Who is Gawampati? (2) The lord of the cows, the great master, is it a cow?
2) gavaṃpati—
(Burmese text): (၁) ဂဝံပတိမည်သူ။ (၂) နွားတို့၏-အရှင်-အကြီးအမှူး၊ နွားလား။
(Auto-Translation): (1) Who is Gawampati? (2) The chief of the cows, the master of the cows.
Pali is the language of the Tipiṭaka, which is the sacred canon of Theravāda Buddhism and contains much of the Buddha’s speech. Closeley related to Sanskrit, both languages are used interchangeably between religions.
See also (Relevant definitions)
Partial matches: Gavam, Go, Pati, Patti.
Starts with: Gavampatithera.
Full-text (+29): Jiao fan bo ti, Jia fan bo ti, Ji fang bo di, Niu ji bi qiu, Jia bang bo di, Niu zhu, Niu shi, Jiao fan, Niu xiang, Niu wang zun zhe, Jiao fan bo di, Gopatidhvaja, Gopaticapa, Bota, Yashodeva, Kieu pham ba de, Gavampatithera, Kshinashrava, Gaupatya, Nguu tuong.
Relevant text
Search found 23 books and stories containing Gavampati, Gavāmpati, Gavāṃpati, Gavam-pati, Gavām-pati, Go-pati, Gavaṃpati, Go-pati, Gavāṃ-pati; (plurals include: Gavampatis, Gavāmpatis, Gavāṃpatis, patis, Gavaṃpatis). You can also click to the full overview containing English textual excerpts. Below are direct links for the most relevant articles:
Garga Samhita (English) (by Danavir Goswami)
Verse 1.4.5 < [Chapter 4 - Description of Questions About the Lord’s Appearance]
Verse 4.2.2 < [Chapter 2 - The Story of the Gopīs That Had Been Sages]
Verse 1.4.6 < [Chapter 4 - Description of Questions About the Lord’s Appearance]
A Descriptive Catalogue of the Sanskrit Manuscripts, Madras (by M. Seshagiri Sastri)
Page 283 < [Volume 6 (1909)]
Maha Prajnaparamita Sastra (by Gelongma Karma Migme Chödrön)
Part 2 - The arharts who compiled the baskets (piṭaka) < [Chapter III - General Explanation of Evam Maya Śruta]
Appendix 2 - The location of Suvarṇabhūmi or Suvarṇadvīpa < [Chapter XVI - The Story of Śāriputra]
III. The traces of passion persist in the saints < [VIII. Destroying the traces of the conflicting emotions]
Shurangama Sutra (with commentary) (English) (by Hsuan Hua)
Gavampati: the tongue organ < [Chapter 2 - Twenty-five Means to Enlightenment]
When the defiling objects disappear, the organ is gone < [Chapter 4 - The Two Decisive Doctrines]
Linga Purana (by J. L. Shastri)
Chapter 65 - Thousand names of Śiva (Rudra-sahasranāma) < [Section 1 - Uttarabhāga]
Vinaya (2): The Mahavagga (by T. W. Rhys Davids)
Mahavagga, Khandaka 1, Chapter 9 < [Khandaka 1 - The Admission to the Order of Bhikkhus]