Studies in Indian Art c12.s3.3

c12.s3.3

'It has already been said that the five Dhyāni Buddhas are passive and in deep meditation. For purposes of creation they have each an active counterpart called Bodhisattva. These Bodhisattvas, in successive ages, uphold the creation and then retire and merge again into their original sources. The Bodhisattvas exert their influence over the universe in successive ages through the most exalted of human beings called Mānuṣī Buddhas or Buddhas incarnate. They are a sort of human agent to the Bodhisattvas'. [N. K. Bhattasali, Iconography of Buddhist and Brahmanical Sculptures in the Dacca Museum, p. 18]. Both the Hinayānists and the Mahāyānists believe in a list of twenty-four past Buddhas, each having a peculiar Bodhi tree. Of these the last seven Tathāgatas are designated by the Mahāyānists as Mānuṣī Buddhas, with Maitreya, the coming Buddha, added as the eighth and last of all. The Mānuṣī Buddhas were also made to fit in within the framework of the Dhyānī Buddhas and their Bodhisattvas.