A goddess in the Vedas.

An Indian seer.

The name of Indra’s elephant.

The first monk that the Buddha Śākyamuni recognized as having understood his teachings.

The highest of the five pure abodes (śuddhāvāsa) among the form realms.

A major śrāvaka disciple and personal attendant of the Buddha Śākyamuni during the last twenty-five years of his life. He was a cousin of the Buddha (according to the Mahāvastu, he was a son of Śuklodana, one of the brothers of King Śuddhodana, which means he was a brother of Devadatta; other sources say he was a son of Amṛtodana, another brother of King Śuddhodana, which means he would have been a brother of Aniruddha).Ānanda, having always been in the Buddha’s presence, is said to have memorized all the teachings he heard and is celebrated for having recited all the Buddha’s teachings by memory at the first council of the Buddhist saṅgha, thus preserving the teachings after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa. The phrase “Thus did I hear at one time,” found at the beginning of the sūtras, usually stands for his recitation of the teachings. He became a patriarch after the passing of Mahākāśyapa.

Lit. “Unobstructed.” One of the ten great śrāvaka disciples, famed for his meditative prowess and superknowledges. He was the Buddha's cousin‍—a son of Amṛtodana, one of the brothers of King Śuddhodana‍—and is often mentioned along with his two brothers Bhadrika and Mahānāma. Some sources also include Ānanda among his brothers.

According to Buddhist tradition, one who is worthy of worship (pūjām arhati), or one who has conquered the enemies, the mental afflictions (kleśa-ari-hata-vat), and reached liberation from the cycle of rebirth and suffering. It is the fourth and highest of the four fruits attainable by śrāvakas. Also used as an epithet of the Buddha.

A species of flowering tree.

A type of nonhuman being whose precise status is subject to different views, but is included as one of the six classes of beings in the sixfold classification of realms of rebirth. In the Buddhist context, asuras are powerful beings said to be dominated by envy, ambition, and hostility. They are also known in the pre-Buddhist and pre-Vedic mythologies of India and Iran, and feature prominently in Vedic and post-Vedic Brahmanical mythology, as well as in the Buddhist tradition. In these traditions, asuras are often described as being engaged in interminable conflict with the devas (gods).

From a wealthy brahmin family, Bakkula is said to have become a monk at the age of eighty and lived to be a hundred and sixty! He is also said to have had two families, because as a baby he was swallowed by a large fish and the family who discovered him alive in the fish’s stomach also claimed him as their child. The Buddha’s foremost pupil in terms of health and longevity. It is also said he could remember many previous lifetimes and was a pupil of the previous buddhas Padmottara, Vipaśyin, and Kāśyapa.

Yeshé Dé (late eighth to early ninth century) was the most prolific translator of sūtras into Tibetan. Altogether he is credited with the translation of more than one hundred sixty sūtra translations and more than one hundred additional translations, mostly on tantric topics. In spite of Yeshé Dé’s great importance for the propagation of Buddhism in Tibet during the imperial era, only a few biographical details about this figure are known. Later sources describe him as a student of the Indian teacher Padmasambhava, and he is also credited with teaching both sūtra and tantra widely to students of his own. He was also known as Nanam Yeshé Dé, from the Nanam (sna nam) clan.

Ficus indica banyan or Indian fig.

The name of a divine palace in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three.

The name of the palaces in the divine realm of the Four Great Kings.

A high-ranking deity presiding over a divine world; he is also considered to be the lord of the Sahā world (our universe). Though not considered a creator god in Buddhism, Brahmā occupies an important place as one of two gods (the other being Indra/Śakra) said to have first exhorted the Buddha Śākyamuni to teach the Dharma. The particular heavens found in the form realm over which Brahmā rules are often some of the most sought-after realms of higher rebirth in Buddhist literature. Since there are many universes or world systems, there are also multiple Brahmās presiding over them. His most frequent epithets are “Lord of the Sahā World” (sahāṃpati) and Great Brahmā (mahābrahman).

The name of an Indian preceptor, active in Tibet in the ninth century, who translated many texts in the Kangyur.

A cousin of the Buddha Śākyamuni who broke with him and established his own community. His tradition was still continuing during the first millennium ᴄᴇ. He is portrayed as engendering evil schemes against the Buddha and even succeeding in wounding him. He is usually identified with wicked beings in accounts of previous lifetimes.

One of the Four Great Kings.

The lowest of the six heavens of the desire realm, it is ruled over by the Four Great Kings, who each guard one of the cardinal directions.

An Indian seer.

One of a number of lifestyles that Buddhist monks might adopt, it is particularly conducive to practicing meditation and is thus associated with monks who valued meditation as an integral part of their lives as ascetics.

See “five worldly clairvoyances.”

Five supernatural faculties resulting from meditative concentration that can be attained by both Buddhist and non-Buddhist practitioners: divine sight, divine hearing, knowing the minds of others, recollecting past lives, and the ability to perform miracles.

The name of a forest hermitage.

Four gods who live on the lower slopes (fourth level) of Mount Meru in the eponymous Heaven of the Four Great Kings (Cāturmahā­rājika, rgyal chen bzhi’i ris) and guard the four cardinal directions. Each is the leader of a nonhuman class of beings living in his realm. They are Dhṛtarāṣṭra, ruling the gandharvas in the east; Virūḍhaka, ruling over the kumbhāṇḍas in the south; Virūpākṣa, ruling the nāgas in the west; and Vaiśravaṇa (also known as Kubera) ruling the yakṣas in the north. Also referred to as Guardians of the World or World Protectors (lokapāla, ’jig rten skyong ba).

A class of generally benevolent nonhuman beings who inhabit the skies, sometimes said to inhabit fantastic cities in the clouds, and more specifically to dwell on the eastern slopes of Mount Meru, where they are ruled by the Great King Dhṛtarāṣṭra. They are most renowned as celestial musicians who serve the gods. In the Abhidharma, the term is also used to refer to the mental body assumed by sentient beings during the intermediate state between death and rebirth. Gandharvas are said to live on fragrances (gandha) in the desire realm, hence the Tibetan translation dri za, meaning “scent eater.”

A class of gods associated with the Four Great Kings.

In Indian mythology, the garuḍa is an eagle-like bird that is regarded as the king of all birds, normally depicted with a sharp, owl-like beak, often holding a snake, and with large and powerful wings. They are traditionally enemies of the nāgas. In the Vedas, they are said to have brought nectar from the heavens to earth. Garuḍa can also be used as a proper name for a king of such creatures.

A great śrāvaka adept.

The name of a Śākya girl who in certain sources becomes Prince Siddhārtha’s wife.

“A rapacious animal living in fresh or sea water, any large fish or marine animal (crocodile, shark, serpent, Gangetic alligator, water elephant, or hippopotamus).” (Monier-Williams)

The second heaven of the desire realm located above Mount Meru and reigned over by Indra and thirty-two other deities.

Ficus religiosa or the waved-leaf fig tree, Ficus infectoria.

An Indian seer.

One of the five or six classes of sentient beings, into which beings are born as the karmic fruition of past miserliness. As the term in Sanskrit means “the departed,” they are analogous to the ancestral spirits of Vedic tradition, the pitṛs, who starve without the offerings of descendants. It is also commonly translated as “hungry ghost” or “starving spirit,” as in the Chinese 餓鬼 e gui.They are sometimes said to reside in the realm of Yama, but are also frequently described as roaming charnel grounds and other inhospitable or frightening places along with piśācas and other such beings. They are particularly known to suffer from great hunger and thirst and the inability to acquire sustenance.

The lord of the Trāyastriṃśa heaven on the summit of Mount Sumeru. As one of the eight guardians of the directions, Indra guards the eastern quarter. In Buddhist sūtras, he is a disciple of the Buddha and protector of the Dharma and its practitioners. He is often referred to by the epithets Śatakratu, Śakra, and Kauśika.

The name of the southern continent in Buddhist cosmology, which can signify either the known human world, or more specifically the Indian subcontinent, literally “the jambu island/continent.” Jambu is the name used for a range of plum-like fruits from trees belonging to the genus Szygium, particularly Szygium jambos and Szygium cumini, and it has commonly been rendered “rose apple,” although “black plum” may be a less misleading term. Among various explanations given for the continent being so named, one (in the Abhidharmakośa) is that a jambu tree grows in its northern mountains beside Lake Anavatapta, mythically considered the source of the four great rivers of India, and that the continent is therefore named from the tree or the fruit. Jambudvīpa has the Vajrāsana at its center and is the only continent upon which buddhas attain awakening.

The name of an Indian preceptor, active in Tibet in the ninth century, who translated many texts in the Kangyur.

The name of a garden grove in the divine realm of the Four Great Kings.

An alternate name for the Indian seer Vyāsa.

One of the Four Great Kings.

A sea monster; a crocodile of the Ganges (Monier-Williams).

One of a number of lifestyles that Buddhist monks might adopt, it is particularly conducive to practicing meditation and is thus associated with monks who valued meditation as an integral part of their lives as ascetics. The Tibetan nang du yang dag ’jog pa can correspond to the Sanskrit pratisaṃlāyana or pratisaṁlīna.

One of the principal disciples of the Buddha, known for his ascetic practice.

A goddess.

A term referring to the Buddha Śākyamuni’s closest and most important disciples.

A class of nonhuman beings who live in subterranean aquatic environments, where they guard wealth and sometimes also teachings. Nāgas are associated with serpents and have a snakelike appearance. In Buddhist art and in written accounts, they are regularly portrayed as half human and half snake, and they are also said to have the ability to change into human form. Some nāgas are Dharma protectors, but they can also bring retribution if they are disturbed. They may likewise fight one another, wage war, and destroy the lands of others by causing lightning, hail, and flooding.

A powerful nāga king.

An Indian seer.

An epithet, given to the seer Vyāsa, that alludes to the association of the Vedic seers with a range of astronomical phenomena. Like the figure of the siddha, the great seers can also be understood as beings who dwell “in the vault of the heavens,” which symbolizes their ascension to a semidivine status through the practice of intense asceticism.

An epithet given to the great seer Vyāsa. The Tibetan nus can bu/nus pa can bu, which would back-translate to the Sanskrit *samarthika, is in this case either a mistranslation or the result of a corruption in the original source, which would likely have read *smārtikaśāstra, a reference to the “treatises” of those who follow the Brahmanical traditions.

Literally, “to flow” or “to ooze.” Mental defilements or contaminations that “flow out” toward the objects of cyclic existence, binding us to them. Vasubandhu offers two alternative explanations of this term: “They cause beings to remain (āsayanti) within saṃsāra” and “They flow from the Summit of Existence down to the Avīci hell, out of the six wounds that are the sense fields” (Abhidharma­kośa­bhāṣya 5.40; Pradhan 1967, p. 308). The Summit of Existence (bhavāgra, srid pa’i rtse mo) is the highest point within saṃsāra, while the hell called Avīci (mnar med) is the lowest; the six sense fields (āyatana, skye mched) here refer to the five sense faculties plus the mind, i.e., the six internal sense fields.

A gandharva king.

The real nature, true quality, or condition of things. Throughout Buddhist discourse this term is used in two distinct ways. In one, it designates the relative nature that is either the essential characteristic of a specific phenomenon, such as the heat of fire and the moisture of water, or the defining feature of a specific term or category. The other very important and widespread way it is used is to designate the ultimate nature of all phenomena, which cannot be conveyed in conceptual, dualistic terms and is often synonymous with emptiness or the absence of intrinsic existence.

A śrāvaka, the youngest brother of Śāriputra. Also known as Khadiravanīya. Elsewhere translated as nam gru.

The name of Indra’s highest consort.

A term for the thread with which members of the twice-born castes are invested upon their entrance into the student stage, during which they master the study of Vedic and other religious rites, and that they wear during the performance of any rites.

A species of tree.

The sandalwood tree, Sirium myrtifolium.

One of the principal śrāvaka disciples of the Buddha, he was renowned for his discipline and for having been praised by the Buddha as foremost of the wise (often paired with Maudgalyā­yana, who was praised as foremost in the capacity for miraculous powers). His father, Tiṣya, to honor Śāriputra’s mother, Śārikā, named him Śāradvatīputra, or, in its contracted form, Śāriputra, meaning “Śārikā’s Son.”

Indian sage or wise man (often a wandering ascetic or hermit).

Usually refers to the six sense faculties and their corresponding objects, i.e., the first twelve of the eighteen dhātus (“elements”). Along with skandha (“aggregates”) and dhātu, it is one of the three major categories in the taxonomy of phenomena in the sūtra literature.

A broad term for any kind of service that one might perform to honor, worship, or otherwise support the Three Jewels, even outside the context of performing a formal offering rite.

This term more literally translates “desire for passion” or “desire for sex.”

A divine garden in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three that derives its name from the śirīṣaka trees (Acacia sirissa) that grow there.

A type of sea creature, its name literally means “child killer.”

An Indian seer.

An Indian seer.

An Indian seer.

An Indian seer.

An Indian seer.

The Sanskrit term śrāvaka, and the Tibetan nyan thos, both derived from the verb “to hear,” are usually defined as “those who hear the teaching from the Buddha and make it heard to others.” Primarily this refers to those disciples of the Buddha who aspire to attain the state of an arhat seeking their own liberation and nirvāṇa. They are the practitioners of the first turning of the wheel of the Dharma on the four noble truths, who realize the suffering inherent in saṃsāra and focus on understanding that there is no independent self. By conquering afflicted mental states (kleśa), they liberate themselves, attaining first the stage of stream enterers at the path of seeing, followed by the stage of once-returners who will be reborn only one more time, and then the stage of non-returners who will no longer be reborn into the desire realm. The final goal is to become an arhat. These four stages are also known as the “four results of spiritual practice.”

Commonly listed as one of the features of the garden groves of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, this term can be used to describe Indra’s throne itself or any number of divine stone platforms that resemble Indra’s throne.

Meeting place of the gods in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three.

According to ancient Buddhist cosmology, this is the great mountain forming the axis of the universe. At its summit is Sudarśana, home of Śakra and his thirty-two gods, and on its flanks live the asuras. The mount has four sides facing the cardinal directions, each of which is made of a different precious stone. Surrounding it are several mountain ranges and the great ocean where the four principal island continents lie: in the south, Jambudvīpa (our world); in the west, Godānīya; in the north, Uttarakuru; and in the east, Pūrvavideha. Above it are the abodes of the desire realm gods. It is variously referred to as Meru, Mount Meru, Sumeru, and Mount Sumeru.

The three root emotional defilements (kleśa): desire, hatred, and delusion. Also known as the three poisons (dug gsum, triviṣa).

A gandharva.

A powerful nāga king.

The name of a goddess.

One of the Four Great Kings.

One of the Four Great Kings.

An Indian seer.

A flowering tree that grows in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, with flowers that can be seen from fifty leagues away and a fragrance that can be smelled from one hundred leagues away. The blossoms of this tree delight the gods of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three, who eagerly watch and rejoice in each stage of their development. The kovidāra tree is glossed as Bauhinia variegata, which also bears the common names “orchid tree” or “purple orchid tree.” The Sanskrit name of this tree indicates that it is a “purple orchid tree” (kovidāra) for either “one who circumambulates” or “one who goes on pilgrimage” (pāriyātraka).

The longest unit of distance in classical India. The lack of a uniform standard for the smaller units means that there is no precise equivalent, especially as its theoretical length tended to increase over time. Therefore it can mean between four and ten miles.

An Indian seer.