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.

འཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་བའི་རྒྱལ་པོ། | Glossary of Terms

  • ཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་བ།

  • ཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་བའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།
  • འཁོར་ལོ་སྐོར་བའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།
  • འཁོར་ལོ་སྒྱུར་བའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།
  • འཁོར་ལོས་བསྒྱུར་བའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།
  • འཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་བ།
  • འཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་བའ་རྒྱལ་པོ།
  • འཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་བའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།
  • འཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་བའི་རྒྱལ་སྲིད།
  • འཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་ཝའི་རྒྱལ་པོ།
  • འཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར།
  • ’khor los sgyur ba’i rgyal po
  • ’khor los sgyur ba
  • ’khor los sgyur ba’i rgyal srid
  • ’khor lo sgyur ba’i rgyal po
  • ’khor los sgyur
  • khor los sgyur ba
  • khor los sgyur ba’i rgyal po
  • ’khor los sgyur ba’ rgyal po
  • ’khor los bsgyur ba’i rgyal po
  • ’khor lo skor ba’i rgyal po
  • ’khor los sgyur wa’i rgyal po
  • cakravartin
  • cakravartirājā
  • cakravartīrāja
  • cakravartirāja
  • cakravarttirājya
  • cakravarttin
  • Term
Publications: 67

An ideal monarch or emperor who, as the result of the merit accumulated in previous lifetimes, rules over a vast realm in accordance with the Dharma. Such a monarch is called a cakravartin because he bears a wheel (cakra) that rolls (vartana) across the earth, bringing all lands and kingdoms under his power. The cakravartin conquers his territory without causing harm, and his activity causes beings to enter the path of wholesome actions. According to Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa, just as with the buddhas, only one cakravartin appears in a world system at any given time. They are likewise endowed with the thirty-two major marks of a great being (mahāpuruṣalakṣaṇa), but a cakravartin’s marks are outshined by those of a buddha. They possess seven precious objects: the wheel, the elephant, the horse, the wish-fulfilling gem, the queen, the general, and the minister. An illustrative passage about the cakravartin and his possessions can be found in The Play in Full (Toh 95), 3.33.13.

Vasubandhu lists four types of cakravartins: (1) the cakravartin with a golden wheel (suvarṇacakravartin) rules over four continents and is invited by lesser kings to be their ruler; (2) the cakravartin with a silver wheel (rūpyacakravartin) rules over three continents and his opponents submit to him as he approaches; (3) the cakravartin with a copper wheel (tāmracakravartin) rules over two continents and his opponents submit themselves after preparing for battle; and (4) the cakravartin with an iron wheel (ayaścakravartin) rules over one continent and his opponents submit themselves after brandishing weapons.