arhat (in cantonese Law Hon)

Arhat (Sanskrit अरिहन्त) or arahant (Pali), in the sramanic traditions of ancient India (most notably those of Jainism and Buddhism), signified a spiritual practitioner who had – to use an expression common in the tipitaka – "laid down the burden", realising the goal of nirvana, the culmination of the spiritual life (brahmacarya). Such a person, having removed all causes for future becoming, is not reborn after biological death into any samsaric realm. In the Pali Canon, the word is sometimes used as a synonym for tathagata.[1]

Origin

Arhat occurs as 'arhattaa' in the Rig Veda (Hopkins, P. 202The Great Epic of India) and as the first offer of salutation in the main Jain prayer Navakar Mantra. The latter word occurs mostly in Buddhist and Jain texts, but also in some Vaishnava texts, such as the Bhagavata Purana.[2] Arhattaa also occurs in the Vaishnava Srî Narada Pancharatnam (Vijnanananda, P. 203 Srî Narada Pancharatnam).
A Luohan, by Liu Songnian, late 12th-early 13th century, Song Dynasty.

The word "arahan" literally means "worthy one"[3] (an alternative folk etymology is "foe-destroyer" or "vanquisher of enemies"[4]) and constitutes the highest grade of noble person—ariya-puggala—described by the Buddha as recorded in the Pali canon. The word was used (as it is today in the liturgy of Theravada Buddhism) as an epithet of the Buddha himself as well as of his enlightened disciples. The most widely recited liturgical reference is perhaps the homage: Namo Tassa Bhagavato, Arahato, Samma-sammbuddhassa.—Homage to him, the Blessed One, the Worthy One, the perfectly enlightened Buddha.


阿羅漢（梵語：अरिहन्त，arhat），簡稱為羅漢，是依照佛的教導修習四聖諦，脫離生死輪迴的聖人。

意義

梵語阿羅漢意譯為無學，指的是從比丘因地修行畢業，所學圓滿；依大、小乘見解各有其義。其尚有三義：

1. 應供：佛的十種稱號當中就有「應供」一項，而「應供」的梵語其實正是「阿羅漢」。阿羅漢福慧俱足，為眾生之福田，供養阿羅漢可以修福，以其能教眾生如何修福、修慧、斷煩惱。
2. 殺賊：「賊」指煩惱，使眾生有損。阿羅漢斷除煩惱，故云「殺賊」。
3. 無生：無生是不生不滅，出了三界六道輪迴。