adjective noun one who does not return, a Never-Returner, as tt. designating one who has attained the 3^rd stage out of four in the breaking of the bonds (Saṃyojanas) which keep a man back from Arahantship. So near is the Anāgāmin to the goal, that after death he will be reborn in one of the highest heaven and there obtain Arahantship, never returning to rebirth as a man But in the oldest passages referring to these 4 stages the description of the third does not use the word anāgāmin (DN.i.156; DN.ii.92; DN.iii.107; MN.ii.146) and anāgāmin does not mean the breaking of bonds, but the cultivation of certain specified good mental habits (SN.iii.168, the anatta doctrine; SN.v.200–⁠SN.v.202, the five Indriyas; AN.i.64 AN.i.120, cultivation of good qualities, AN.ii.160; AN.v.86, AN.v.171, Snp.149). We have only two cases in the canon of any living persons being called anāgāmin. Those are at SN.v.177 and SN.v.178. The word there means one who has broken the lower five of the ten bonds, & the individuals named are laymen. At DN.ii.92 nine others, of whom eight are laymen, are declared after their death to have reached the third stage (as above) during life but they are not called anāgāmins. At Iti.96 there are only 3 stages, the worldling, the Anāgāmin, and the Arahant; and the Saṃyojanas are not referred to. It is probable that already in the Nikāya period the older wider meaning was falling into disuse. The Abhidhamma books seem to refer only to the Saṃyojana explanation the commentaries, so far as we know them, ignore any other. See Pts.ii.194; Kv. Tr. 74; Dhs. Tr. 302 n; Cp. 69.

• -phala fruition of the state of an Anāgāmin; always in comb^n. sotāpatti˚ sakadāgāmi˚ anāgāmi˚ arahatta˚ Vin.i.293; Vin.ii.240; Vin.iv.29; DN.i.229; DN.ii.227, DN.ii.255; SN.iii.168 SN.v.411; AN.i.23, AN.i.44; AN.iii.272 sq.; AN.iv.204, AN.iv.276, AN.iv.372 sq
• -magga the path of one who does not return (in rebirths Cnd.569#b.Anagara & Anagariya

an + āgāmin