page_title: Buddhist mythology
section_title: Mahāyāna mythology
hierarchical_section_title: Buddhist mythology / Mahāyāna mythology
caption_attribution_description: English: Amoghpasha lokeshvara images in Guitabahi
context_page_description: The Buddhist traditions have created and maintained a vast body of mythological literature. The central myth of Buddhism is the life of the Buddha. This is told in relatively realistic terms in the earliest texts, and was soon elaborated into a complex literary mythology. The chief motif of this story, and the most distinctive feature of Buddhist myth, is the Buddha's renunciation: leaving his home and family for a spiritual quest. Alongside this central myth, the traditions contain large numbers of smaller stories, which are usually supposed to convey an ethical or Buddhist teaching. These include the popular Jātakas, folk tales or legends believed to be past lives of Gautama Buddha. Since these are regarded as episodes in the life of the Buddha, they are treated here as “myth”, rather than distinguishing between myth, legend, and folk-tale.
  Buddhist mythology is maintained in texts, but these have always existed alongside oral traditions of storytelling, as well as creative retellings of myths as drama or artworks. This creative mythology continues to this day, and includes film, television, and musical adaptions of Buddhist myths.
context_section_description: In addition to the Mahāyāna origin story, Mahāyanist texts include a wide variety of narratives and mythologies, with numerous divine figures and stories that do not appear in the earlier texts. These vary from dramatic or humorous tales, to abstract philosophical parables. Mahayana sutras such as the Lotus sutra and the Avatamsaka Sutra contain popular stories and parables which have been widely influential in Mahayana Buddhism.
  A central figure in Mahāyāna myths is the Bodhisattva, a spiritually advanced being who is on the path to Buddhahood. Some of these beings, such as Tara, Avalokiteshvara, Manjushri and Vajrapani, while not yet Buddhas, have developed extraordinary godlike powers by reaching the highest bodhisattva level. According to Paul Williams, Avalokiteshvara "is perhaps the most popular of all Mahayana Bodhisattvas" and is seen as the compassionate savior of all beings, working constantly using infinite forms and means to help others. Important sources for this figure are the Lotus sutra and the Karandavyuha sutra.
  Other bodhisattvas are depicted as being still in the process of developing their skill in means (upaya) such as Sudhana of the Gaṇḍavyūha Sutra, and thus their stories serve as spiritual bildungsroman.
  Buddhahood is also central to Mahayana mythology. A Buddha in Mahayana texts is also much more exalted and extraordinary than in earlier texts. A godlike being, a Buddha in the Mahayana imaginary has lived and will continue to live for countless eons preaching his doctrine in innumerable ways and means to innumerable numbers of beings. Regarding the Buddha Gautama, his limited "human" life on earth was merely an illusion, a docetic mirage which merely appears to perform human actions such as eating and so on. Another important feature of Mahāyāna Buddhist myths is that they include Buddhas other than Gautama Buddha, such as Amitābha, Bhaisajyaguru, Vairocana and Akshobhya, each with their own texts. These Buddhas are said to live in other realms, called Buddhafields (buddhakṣetra, also known as Pure Lands) and to still be reachable in meditation, visions or through their intermediaries. These other worlds are said to extend infinitely in all directions, each containing a Buddha which teaches in their Buddhafield. A Buddha such as Amitābha for example (one of the most popular Buddhas in East Asia), was associated with his vow that anyone who recited his name would be reborn in his pure land as well as with the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. These other Buddhas were also seen as the source of some of the Mahayana sutras like the Pure land sutras and the Aksobhyavyuha sutras.
  The hagiographies of Indian Mahayana figures such as Asanga and Nagarjuna, and the stories associated with them are also important in the mythology of Mahayana Buddhism. Biographies of the Indian philosopher Nagarjuna for example, depict him as a great brahmin sorcerer with powerful magics who made himself and his friends invisible once to enter a palace and violate the women. After his escape, his friends were all killed and this led him to the spiritual life and to the study of all the Buddha Dharma. This eventually led him to the discovery of the prajñaparamita sutras with the aid of the Naga king
  These stories and figures also further evolved in East Asian Buddhism, for example, in time the male figure of Avalokiteshvara transformed into the female motherly figure of Guanyin which has her own East Asian mythic corpus. East Asian Buddhism (all of which is Mahāyāna) also developed further regional and school specific mythologies as Buddhism continued to evolve and adapt. Stories and legends about founding figures and patriarchs of East Asian Buddhist schools are one such development. One example are the numerous stories which developed around the Zen patriarch Bodhidharma which serve to explain how Zen Buddhism is supposed to have arrived in China. Another widely recognized figure which developed in China is the fat and jolly figure named Budai, which developed in Zen texts such as the Transmission of the Lamp.
  Another very pop
caption: Amoghpasha Lokesvara flanked by Arya Tara and Bhrikuti Tara enshrined at the side wing of Vasuccha Shil Mahavihar, Guita Bahi, Patan : This set of images is popular in traditional monasteries of Kathmandu Valley, Nepal.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 300D DIGITAL", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2010:07:11 20:32:56", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "220", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1066", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "19430", "EXIF ExposureTime": "5", "EXIF FNumber": "22", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "1980:01:01 00:02:24", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "1980:01:01 00:02:24", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "-71085/32768", "EXIF ApertureValue": "584507/65536", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-1/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "76085/16384", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "39", "EXIF SubSecTime": "890", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4616", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2740", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "768000/223", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "409600/119", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}