The History of Buddhist Thought c13.s1: Note on the Wheel of Becoming
The History of Buddhist Thought c13.s1
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Note on the Wheel of Becoming
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The Causal Formula does not appear to have been at first conceived as a wheel but as a line in the series of transmigrations of unknown beginning. But it easily lent itself to such a presentation. In the *Divyāvadāna* (300) Buddha, after hearing from Ānanda the merits of Maudgalyāyana (Moggallāna) as a teacher, says that there will not always be one like him, and orders the Five-spoked Wheel to be inscribed over the gateway of the Veluvana monastery at Rājagaha. He describes how it is to be made: “The five-spoked Wheel . . . is to be made with the five destinies (*gati*), the hells, animals, pretas (ghosts), gods, and human beings. Therein the hells are to be made at the bottom, the animals and ghosts above; then gods and human beings; the four continents, Pūrvavideha, Aparagodānīya, Uttarakuru, and Jambudvīpa. In the middle (the nave) passion, hatred, and stupidity are to be represented, passion in the form of a dove, hatred in the form of a snake, and stupidity in the form of a pig. An image of Buddha is to be made pointing out the circle of Nirvāṇa. Apparitional beings are to be represented by means of a windlass as passing away and being reborn. All round is to be represented the twelve-fold Causal Origination in direct and reverse order. The whole is to be represented as swallowed by Impermanence (*anityatā*), and two verses are to be written:
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THE WHEEL OF BECOMING
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Make a beginning, renounce your home,
To the Buddha-teaching apply yourselves;
Smite away the army of Death,
As an elephant a house of reeds.
Who in this Law and Discipline
Shall vigilantly lead his life,
Abandoning the round of birth,
Shall verily make an end of pain.¹
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¹ The verses occur in *Samy.*, i, 156, and elsewhere.
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Among the cave paintings of Ajanta (ascribed to the 7th century A.D.) is a pictorial representation, which has been identified with the Wheel of Becoming (*bhavacakra*), but it is too fragmentary for making comparisons.² The form usually represented in Tibet has six spokes, as in that reproduced by Dr. Waddell. The five destinies have been increased to six by making the asuras, the rebel gods, a separate career. In the *Kathāvatthu* (viii, 1) the doctrine of six destinies is opposed. The upper sector represents the gods, who at the right are seen fighting under Indra (Śakra) against the Asuras, who are attacking them in the next sector. To the left other heavens are visible. The seated figure is Mahābrahmā, of whose four faces three can be seen in the original.
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² It was identified as such by Dr. L. A. Waddell, *Journ. As. Soc. Bengal*, 1893, vol. lxi, pt. 1, p. 133; *JRAS.*, 1894, p. 367; *The Buddhism of Tibet*, pp. 105 ff, where reproductions of this and the Tibetan form are given. He also attempted an interpretation of the Wheel, with analogies from Schopenhauer, Hartmann, and Spinoza. A satisfactory explanation based upon the evidence of the Sanskrit Buddhists was given by L. de la Vallée Poussin at the 14th International Congress of Orientalists (Algiers) in 1905 (*Actes*, 1e partie, § 1, p. 193).
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In the next sector are the Asuras, and at the foot of Mount Meru the wishing tree, Cittapāṭalī, which here extends into Indra’s heaven of the thirty-three gods. In Indra’s heaven is said to be the tree Pārijātaka (Pāli, Pāricchattaka), and here there may be some confusion or special legend about the two. Indra’s heaven is properly on the top of Mount Meru, but the circular arrangement of the picture has probably prevented exact representation.
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Below comes the realm of animals and fish. At the bottom of the ocean is the palace of the Nāgas, serpents who can assume human form.
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In the lowest sector are the hells. In the upper part Yama is judging the sinners, and in the lower part are the hot hells on the left and the cold hells on the right.
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Next is the realm of the pretas, beings with large bellies and very small mouths, always tortured with hunger and thirst. The remaining sector is that of human beings. In each sector is a figure of Avalokiteśvara, who visits all realms in fulfilment of his vow to save the world.
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The Twelve nidānas running along the rim in direct order (clockwise direction) from the top are :
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1. *Avidyā*, ignorance : blind man with a stick.
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2. *Saṃskārāḥ*, lit. aggregates, compounds : potter with wheel and pots.
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3. *Vijñāna*, consciousness : monkey climbing a tree with flowers.
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4. *Nāmarūpa*, name and form, mind and body : a ship (the body) with four passengers representing nāma, i.e. the four immaterial skandhas : feeling, perception, saṃskāras, and consciousness. Consciousness is steering.
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5. *Ṣaḍāyatanāni*, six sense-organs : an empty house.
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6. *Sparśa*, contact : man and woman embracing. (6 and 7 are misplaced in the figure.)
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7. *Vedanā*, feeling : man with an arrow in his eye.
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8. *Tṛṣṇā*, thirst, craving : woman offering drink to a seated man.
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9. *Upādāna*, grasping : man gathering fruit from a tree.
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10. *Bhava*, becoming (conception) : woman with child.
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11. *Jāti*, birth : woman in childbirth.
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12. *Jarāmaraṇa*, old age and death : man carrying a corpse to the cemetery.
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It will be seen that the figures are merely illustrations of states in each stage, and sometimes only allegorical representations, as in the case of the potter and the ship. They do not throw much light on the theory of the wheel, but they show an interpretation which agrees in general with the view that it represents different stages in the transmigration of the individual.
Linked texts (3)
- Kathāvatthu — Moggaliputta Tissa, Pāli
- Divyāvadāna — Sanskrit
- Saṃyuttanikāya — Pāli