Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1858, from Hindi sangha, Sanskrit samgha, from sam "together" + han "to come in contact."
Wiktionary
n. 1 The community of all followers of the Buddha; the ecclesia in which the devout take refuge; those who have "entered the stream" towards nirvana; as one of the three jewels of Buddhism. 2 The Buddhist congregation including laypersons and "religious" (renunciate monks and nuns who have taken vows).
Wikipedia
Sangha ( Pali: सङ्घ saṅgha; Sanskrit: संघ saṃgha; ; Tibetan: དགེ་འདུན་ dge 'dun) is a word in Pali and Sanskrit meaning "association", "assembly," "company" or "community" and most commonly refers in Buddhism to the monastic community of ordained Buddhist monks or nuns. This community is traditionally referred to as the bhikkhu-sangha or bhikkhuni-sangha. As a separate category, those who have attained any of the four stages of enlightenment, whether or not they are members of the bhikkhu-sangha or bhikkhuni-sangha, are referred to as the ariya-sangha or "noble Sangha".
The Sangha according to Theravada does not refer to the community of lay followers, nor the community of Buddhists as a whole.
- Redirect Sangha
Sangha (from Sanskrit saṃgha 'assembly') usually refers to:
- Sangha (Buddhism), the community of Buddhist monks
- Sangha (Jainism), the fourfold community of pious followers of Jainism
Sangha may also refer to:
In Jainism, Sangha (Community of the pious) is a term used to refer to the fourfold community of muni ( male ascetics), aryika (female ascetics), Śrāvaka (laymen), and Śrāvikā (laywomen).
The word is also used in various other ways.
Usage examples of "sangha".
But whereas the Athenian assembly is supposedly open to commoners as well as to nobles, the sangha of the Indian republics was made up of representatives from each of the nine states.
In the republics, the sangha is the council of all the heads of family.
But whereas a republican sangha is ruled by half its membership plus one, the sangha of the Buddhists can make no decision without a unanimous vote.
Buddha is the ultimate I, Dharma the ultimate It, and Sangha the ultimate We.
Buddha and Sangha are violently reduced to flatland objectivist terms, and an approach that originally wishes us to transcend and include, ends up being a merely and purely Descended worldview that effectively blocks transcendence altogether.
Buddha, Sangha, Dharmaeach inseparably interwoven with the others and interwoven in the Good and the Goodness of the All.
He had entered the Holy Gate of the sangha, the monastic community of Buddhist believers.
I withdrew from public life and entered the Sangha, I acted as an attorney for your grandfather, Martin Everly, in one instance while he was with us.
He entrusted the case to me when he was a novice at the Sangha, our Buddhist community in Sequim.
Flows together with the Sangha and the Likouala and then into the Congo, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean between Boma and Soyo.