Excerpt from "The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature" by Har Dayal

A Buddha is primarily a fully “enlightened” being. But the characteristic attributes and qualities of a Buddha have been described and enumerated in several definite formulae…. A Buddha is one, who has acquired the ten balas (powers), the four vaicaradyas (grounds of self-confidence), and the eighteen avenika-dharmas (special and extraordinary attributes). No other being possesses these attributes…. A Buddha is distinguished from other beings by his deep and great pity, love, mercy and compassion for all beings (karuna)…. A Buddha is noted for his thorough and unblemished purity. His bodily actions, his speech, his thoughts and his very soul are pure; and there is not the slightest impurity in him. On account of this fourfold purity, he need not be on his guard against others.

Har Dayal (1884–1939) was an Indian writer who began his career as a revolutionary anarchist — in reaction to the English hold on his homeland — and died a Buddhist pacifist. He helped found the Ghadar Party, expatriate Indians in America seeking to overthrow English rule. The Bodhisattva Doctrine shows that this controversial figure in India’s fight for independence was also a committed scholar of Indian and Far Eastern literature and thought.