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In Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism the Wheel of Life is a symbolic representation of samsara, the continuous cycle of birth, life, death. One is liberated from this endless cycle of rebirth when Enlightenment is achieved, and with this goal, the Awakened individual has won Nirvana, moksha, samadhi, etc., the highest state of bliss that was long a part of Vedic tradition and continued into Buddhism with Gautama Buddha and Jainism with Mahavira.Liberation is the central goal of all three of the Dharmic religions.
The symbol below illustrates the basic wheel of life. More elaborate versions of this motif have been included in much of the art of these faiths.
In Unicode, the symbol is named "Wheel of Dharma", U+2638 (☸).
In the Indian Mahayana Buddhism scriptural language of Sanskrit, the Wheel of Life is called Bhavachakra.
See also
- Buddhist symbolismBuddhist symbolism includes the following symbols: General Among the most common symbols of Buddhism are the dharma wheel and the lotus flower. The dharma wheel, traditionally represented with eight spokes, can have a variety of meanings. It is generally
- kalachakraKalachakra is a term used in tantric Buddhism that means time-wheel or time-cycles. The Kalachakra tradition, which is described in the Kalacakra Tantra revolves around the concept of time and cycles: from the cycles of the planets, to the cycles of our b (wheel of history)
- Wheel of Dharma
- The Wheel of Life is also a freeGFDL redirects here. For other meanings of the term, please see GFDL (disambiguation The GNU Free Documentation License GFDL is a copyleft license for free content, designed by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) for the GNU project. The current state of t e-book by The Abbotts. 1
Symbols
