Buddhism is about practicing and training oneself. Its goal is to understand truth by total extinguishment of the taints in order to depart from the cycle of Samsāra. The person who had understood the truth and extinguished taints is recognized as the Buddha and Arhant in early Buddhism. Depending on one self’s accumulated experiences of practicing as well as the ability of understanding the truth, one who thoroughly realized the Four Noble Truths and attainment to the noble state is named the Buddha. The person who is under the guidance of the Buddha and is having great effort to practice celibacy of life as well as by understanding Four Noble Truths and attained to the noble state is named an Arhant. According to the view of early Buddhism, these two nobles have thoroughly realized that attachment to the five aggregates is suffering,the origin of suffering is craving, and extinguishing of craving is through detachment of the five aggregates. To extinguish that craving, they have to follow the eightfold noble path. Due to such practice, the noble ones eventually know by themselves that present life has been concluded, celibacy life has been perfected, the works that must be done has been done, and so rebirth shall not take place again. Regarding the viewpoint of emancipation of the Buddha and Arhant, the conception of ‘Arhant non equal to Buddha’ was raised in the Sangha community after one hundred years of the Buddha’s passing away. It was also during the same time, the members of Sangha community started to suspect about the emancipation level of an Arhant. During the period of Sectorial Buddhism, there were two main schools named Theravāda and Maha Samgika. With regards to the emancipation level on an Arhant, the ideas of those two schools differ.
The Arhant in early Buddhism is stated as a life with perfect morality and wisdom with total eradication of the impurities and never to become again in the cycle of Samsāra. Due to that, Arhant was introduced as the wise one (paṇḍīto), the intelligent one (mahāpañño), the alert intellection one (javanapañño), the sharp wisdom one (tikkhapañño) and the penetrating wisdom one (nibbedhikapañño).These holy people had eliminated craving, which are craving for existence and craving for non-existence. They are easily satisfied with any matters and keep away from sensual desires. They have also realized the Four Noble Truths. One hundred years after the Buddha’s passing away, the Sangha members of different schools had misunderstood about the emancipation level of Arhant. These different schools believe that an Arahant has impure discharge, an Arhant may lack of knowledge, an Arahant may have doubts, an Arahant is excelled by others and there is articulate utterance on the part of one who has entered into the noble path.
According to Samayabhedo paracancakra sāstra, the five matters of Mahādeva which has been