Buddha

The Sanskrit root budh means to wake up, to become aware, to know. The past participle is buddha — awakened. Before Siddhartha Gautama sat under the Bodhi tree in approximately 528 BCE, the word existed as an ordinary adjective. You could be buddha about a fact the way you could be awake after sleeping. The word had no religious meaning whatsoever.

Siddhartha Gautama, born around 563 BCE in Lumbini (modern-day Nepal), left his palace at 29, spent six years as an ascetic, and attained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya. His followers called him the Buddha — the awakened one. Not his family name (Gautama), not his clan name (Shakya), but a description of his state: a person who has woken up. The word went from adjective to title in a single lifetime.

As Buddhism spread — to Sri Lanka by the 3rd century BCE, to China by the 1st century CE, to Japan by the 6th century, to Tibet by the 7th — the word traveled with it. In Chinese it became Fo (佛), a phonetic abbreviation. In Japanese, Butsu (仏) or Hotoke. In Thai, Phra Phut (พระพุทธ). Each language adapted the sound, but the meaning held: one who has awakened.

The man born Siddhartha is now known worldwide by a word that could apply to anyone. That was always the point of the title. Buddhist teaching holds that any sentient being can become a buddha — the word is a description, not a proper noun, even though English capitalizes it. The most famous title in Asian religion is a past participle.