âdi-buddha

Updated: June 8, 2025

In the tenth century we find what at first seems to be a growth out of Polytheism into Monotheism, for a new Being, to whom the attributes of infinity, self-existence and omniscience are ascribed, is invented and named Adi-Buddha, or the primordial Buddha.

William Elliot Griffis - The Religions of Japan: From the Dawn of History to the Era of Méiji

Hodgson describes these works as much venerated and Rajendralal Mitra has analysed them, but Sylvain Lévi heard little of them in 1898, though he mentions the recitation of the Prajñâ-pâramitâ. The Svayambhû Purâṇa is an account of the manifestation of the Âdi-Buddha written in the style of those portions of the Brahmanic Purâṇas which treat of the glories of some sacred place.

Sir Charles Eliot - Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 2