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Updated: June 17, 2025
In China and Japan there is a marked tendency to regard all Bodhisattvas as ancient worthies who by their vows and virtues have risen to their present high position. Ztsft. 1913-15. See too Johnston, Buddhist China, chap. This mythology did not grow up around the Buddha without affecting the central figure.
Tushita is the fourth Devaloka, where all Bodhisattvas are reborn before finally appearing on earth as Buddha. Life lasts in Tushita 4000 years, but twenty-four hours there are equal to 400 years on earth. E. H., p. 152. It was in the Tushita heaven that Sakyamuni met him and appointed him as his successor, to appear as Buddha after the lapse of 5000 years.
The Dharma or Nirañjana of the Śûnya Purâna seems to be equivalent to Âdi-Buddha. Sometimes the Âdi-Buddha is identified with Vajrasattva or Samantabhadra, although these beings are otherwise classified as Bodhisattvas. For this doctrine see especially De la Vallée Poussin, J.R.A.S. 1906, pp. 943-997 and Muséon, 1913, pp. 257 ff. Jigs-med nam-mká, the historian of Tibetan Buddhism, describes four.
So far as we can judge, the figures of these Bodhisattvas took shape just about the same time that the personalities of Vishnu and Śiva were acquiring consistency. The impulse in both cases is the same, namely the desire to express in a form accessible to human prayer and sympathetic to human emotion the forces which rule the universe.
But the difference between early and later Buddhism lies in this, that the deities who surround the Buddha in the Pali Pitakas are mere accessories: his teaching would not be affected if they were all removed. But the Bodhisattvas in the Lotus or the Sutra of the Happy Land have a doctrinal significance.
Therefore let him who would be born into the Land of Purity seek refuge in the Great Congregation. In Paradise are the Mighty unnumbered, Bodhisattvas ranked in that hierarchy nearest to the Perfect Enlightenment. Thence are they made flesh upon earth according to the way of salvation that all having life might be saved. Take refuge in the ocean-deep Soul Universal.
There is the lotus, in leaf, bud, flower and calyx; the diamond in every form, real and imaginary, with the vagra or emblem of conquest; while on the altars, beside the central image, be it that of Shaka or of Amida, are Bodhisattvas or Buddhas by brevet, beings in every state of existence, as well as deities of many names and forms.
The object is not to share Brahmâ's heaven but to become temporarily identified with a deity, and this is not a byway of religion but the high road. But there is a further stage of degradation. I have already mentioned that various Bodhisattvas are represented as accompanied by a female deity, particularly Avalokita by Târâ.
The chief image stood in the middle of the car, with two Bodhisattvas in attendance on it, while devas were made to follow in waiting, all brilliantly carved in gold and silver, and hanging in the air.
But he is also a devotee, a bhakta: he adores all the Buddhas of the past, present and future as well as sundry superhuman Bodhisattvas, and he confesses his sins, not after the fashion of the Pâtimokkha, but by accusing himself before these heavenly Protectors and vowing to sin no more. Śântideva lived in the seventh century but tells us that he follows the scriptures and has nothing new to say.
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