84000 Glossary of Terms

Our trilingual glossary combining entries from all of our publications into one useful resource, giving translations and definitions of thousands of terms, people, places, and texts from the Buddhist canon.

ཙན་དན། | Glossary of Terms

    ཙན་དན།

    tsan dan

    Candana

  • Person
  • Note: this data is still being sorted
Publications: 2
Translation by Catherine Dalton · Heidi Koppl · James Gentry · Cortland Dahl · Hilary Herdman · Andreas Doctor
  • Candana
  • ཙན་དན།
  • tsan dan
  • Candana

A god.

Translation by Bruno Galasek-Hul
  • Candana
  • ཙན་དན།
  • tsan dan
  • Candana

In the sūtra Auspicious Night, Candana is identified as an army general from among the gods of the Heaven of the Thirty-Three. According to the Pali suttas, Candana is one of the yakṣa generals and a vassal of the gods of the four directions, also known as the Four Great Kings (Cāturmahārājika). In the Lomasakaṅgiyabhaddekarattasutta version of the Bhaddekarattasuttas in the Majjhima Nikāya (MN 134), as in Auspicious Night, Candana is the deity that illuminates the banks/park of the hot springs, but he is not identified as a general from the Heaven of the Thirty-Three gods. The Sanskrit word means “sandalwood powder,” which was considered a very precious substance.