Chakravartin ( Skt. चक्रवर्तिन् cakra-vartin, literally “the one who turns the wheel”) is a common name in Buddhist and Jain teachings for the ideal ruler, whose reign brings the world out of the chaos of lawlessness to the highest level of order.
According to Buddhist ideas about history, humanity lives in three such steps, naturally replacing each other:
- presence of law
- misrepresentation of law
- lack of law
The rule of the chakravartins leads to the purification of the world, giving rise to a new era. It is claimed that the birth of chakravartin is accompanied by the same miracles as the birth of Buddhas. Buddha could choose the path of the ideal ruler (chakravartin), having thirty-two signs on his body, which can only be chakravartin or Buddha.
In the Pali canon, Siddhartha Gautam Buddha Shakyamuni also says that he could “choose a career” of Chakravartin - the world ruler or become a Buddha by going the way of the hermit muni (“muni” in Sanskrit literally means “silencer” (from Skt. “Mauna” - “Silence.” Hermits were traditionally called Muni in Silence in India. Over time, this word as well as “shramana” (a wandering monk) became synonymous with the hermit.) Siddhartha preferred the search for Truth (Dighanikaya 26).
One of the names of the Buddha of the current world period (kalpa) is “Shakyamuni” (a hermit (in silence) from the Shakya clan).
Each chakravartin has seven treasures subordinate:
- a wheel flying through the air, which provides unlimited possibilities for movement of the chakravartin and his army;
- an elephant and horse with supernatural powers;
- a gem (chundamani) emitting light over long distances and “fulfilling wishes”;
- princess, distinguished by beauty;
- wise adviser
- lucky commander.
The last one is one of the hundred sons of chakravartin.
A detailed description of chakravartin and each of its attributes is contained in the Pali canon (Dighanikaya 17, Sutra of the Great Lord and other sutras), it is also given by a number of Mahayana sutras (some of which have been preserved in the Chinese tripitaka), as well as Vasubandhu in Abhidharmakosh . (Abhidharmakosha. Section 3, carics 95 - 97).
Chakravartin has external (bodily) 32 symptoms. He is born only in the varna ( caste ) of the ksatriyas (warriors).
The duality of the position of cakravartin, presented in the sutras, is noteworthy: on the one hand, it is the standard of the secular monarch (it refers to the highest type of “Buddhist personality” - “mahapurusha”), on the other hand, it refers to the ephemeral nature of secular government, which contrasts the status of Buddha with the sutras and Dharma as an enduring spiritual value.
It is important that ideas about chakravartin are not limited to their literary description.
Many images of the universal world ruler made in India have been preserved - first of all, this is a sculpture of the Mathur school (it has high artistic merits). Mathur school is the first national Indian school of sculpture, developed around the first century BC. e.
A series of chakravartin images is also available among the bas-relief images on the stellas and on the walls of religious buildings belonging to the Gandhar school (North India, the border of our era).
In China
Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty (581-618), having reunited the country, positioned himself as chakravartin. He used Buddhism as a new universal ideology that could strengthen the image of the new regime.
The Yuan Dynasty (1280–1368), under the influence of a contemporary Khubilai , Sakya Pandita Lodoy Zhaltsan and the Tibetan Buddhist school he leads, Sakya took elements of the doctrine of the cakravartins because Sakya Pandita, proclaiming a humane attitude towards subjects of the empire, proclaimed the king- Chakravartin of Genghis Khan , the progenitor of the dynasty. This was expressed, in particular, in the Buddhist Sanskrit names of representatives of the dynasty.
Literature
- Chakravartin / Vasilkov Y. V. , Androsov V.P. // Pigtail - Shervinsky. - M .: Big Russian Encyclopedia, 2017. - P. 396. - ( Big Russian Encyclopedia : [in 35 vols.] / Ch. Ed. Yu. S. Osipov ; 2004—2017, vol. 34). - ISBN 978-5-85270-372-9 .
- Kravtsova M.E. Buddhism as a social and cultural phenomenon of Chinese society. Part 2. The doctrine of chakravartin. M. 1983 (Add. And Rev. St. Petersburg 2001)
- Buddhism. Vocabulary. M. Publishing House "Republic". 1992.
- Vasubandhu. Abhidharmakosha bhashya.
- Sutra of the Great Lord. // Tipitaka. Dighanikaya.
- The sutra is about thirty-two signs.
Links
- Bulich S.K. Chakravartiny // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.