Sotāpanna

In Buddhism, a sotāpanna (Pali), srotāpanna (Sanskrit; Chinese: 入流; pinyin: rùliú, Chinese: 须陀洹; pinyin: xū tuó huán, Burmese: သောတာပန်, Tibetan: རྒྱུན་ཞུགས་, Wylie: rgyun zhugs), "stream-enterer", "stream-winner", or "stream-entrant" is a person who has seen the Dharma and thereby has dropped the first three fetters (Pāli: samyojana, Sanskrit: saṃyojana) that bind a being to a possible rebirth in one of the three lower realms (animals, hungry ghosts, and beings suffering in and from hellish states), namely self-view (sakkāya-ditthi), clinging to rites and rituals (sīlabbata-parāmāsa), and skeptical indecision (Vicikitsa).

The word sotāpanna literally means "one who entered (āpanna) the stream (sota), stream-enterer", after a metaphor which calls the noble eightfold path a stream which leads to a vast ocean, nibbāna. Entering the stream (sotāpatti) is the first of the four stages of enlightenment.