The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (415 page)

 
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(Skt., P
li, ‘awakened’). In Hinduism, perfect knowledge, personified as Bodha, a son of Buddhi (intellect).
In Buddhism, it is the experience of enlightenment, which, unlike
nirv
na
, can be given an approximate description: it is the attainment of perfect clarity of mind in which things are seen as they really are—as in the experience of Gaut
ma under the tree (hence called Bodhi or
Bo
tree) through which he became the Buddha. Cf.
BODAI
.
In later Buddhism, the bodhis are the four stages of the
rya-m
rga
.
In
Mah
y
na
, bodhi is wisdom based on insight into the undifferentiated sameness of all appearance.

 
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(Entering upon the Practice of Awakening). A practical work by
antideva on the Buddhist six perfections (
p
ramit
), which include, as the fifth, jh
na (meditation). Of
antideva, nothing certain is known, apart from the fact that he was the supposed author of an analytic work,
iksh
samuccaya. Bodhicary
vat
ra
is a much revered and used work.