anAgAmin · masculine & ~inī feminine
Anāgāmin (adjective/noun) [an + āgāmin] one who does not return, a Never-Returner, as technical term designating one who has attained the 3rd 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 (D I 156; II 92; III 107; M II 146) and Anāgāmin does not mean the breaking of bonds, but the cultivation of certain specified good mental habits (S III 168, the anatta doctrine; S V 200-202, the five indriyas; A I 64, 120, cultivation of good qualities, II 160; V 86, 171 = S 149). We have only two cases in the canon of any living persons being called Anāgāmin. Those are at S V 177 and 178. The word there means one who has broken the lower five of the ten bonds, and the individuals named are laymen. At D II 92 nine others, of {32} 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 It 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 Paṭis II 194; PtsC. 74; BMPE 278 note 1; Cpd 69. -phala fruition of the state of an Anāgāmin; always in combination Sotāpatti° Sakadāgāmi° Anāgāmi° Arahatta° Vin I 293; II 240; IV 29; D I 229; II 227, 255; S III 168; V 411; A I 23, 44; III 272 f.; IV 204, 276, 372 sq; -magga the path of one who does not return (in rebirths) Nidd II §569 b.
anāgāmin , f. °nī (= Pali id. ), one who is destined no more to return to this world : Mvy 5135—6 ; Av i.286.7 ; f. °nī ( pl. °nyo) Divy 533.26 ; °mi-phala, the fruit of attaining this condition , Divy 18.6 ; 48.14 ; 50.9 ; Av i.65.1 etc. See s.v. srota-āpanna .
one who does not return (to this world; one who has reached the third stage, and will be reborn only in a Brahma world, and attain arahatship there)