Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
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This page groups deities by the gender attributed to them in myth, since most pantheons assign their gods a specific gender the way they assign one to people. Wikipedia notes that "in polytheistic religions, gods often have genders which would enable them to sexually interact with each other, and even with humans." Browsing this way lets a visitor compare, for instance, every goddess in the atlas against every god, regardless of which tradition either comes from.

Facts
Attestation
Era of Attestation
Inherited devas appear in the earliest canonical strata; the celestial buddhas and bodhisattvas emerge with the Mahayana sutras around the turn of the era; the wrathful tantric deities from about the seventh century CE. All remain in worship. 2
Veneration Today
Venerated today across the Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions. 2
Overview
What Defines This Grouping
Celestial and enlightened figures venerated across the Buddhist world: buddhas and bodhisattvas, tantric deities and protectors, and devas inherited from Indian and local pantheons. Buddhism posits no creator god and the historical Buddha is not one. The grouping is a convenience of this atlas rather than a category the tradition uses. 2
Directory
Category
Deities 1
Status
Standing as a Comparative Category
Calling buddhas, bodhisattvas and protectors deities imports a category Buddhist doctrine does not use. The tradition's own classes - buddha, bodhisattva, deva, dharmapala - do not map onto one another, and none of them maps onto the word god. 2
Learn More
The divine figures of Buddhism

This group gathers the celestial and enlightened figures venerated across the Buddhist world. Classical Buddhism does not posit a creator god, and the historical Buddha is remembered as an awakened teacher rather than a deity; yet the tradition developed a vast pantheon of buddhas, bodhisattvas, protectors and inherited gods, especially in its Mahayana and Vajrayana forms.

The browser will find cosmic buddhas such as Amitabha and Vairocana, the compassion-bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (Guanyin, Chenrezig) and the wisdom-bodhisattva Manjushri, the future buddha Maitreya, wrathful protectors, and devas absorbed from Hindu and local traditions. Provenance and school (Theravada, Mahayana, Vajrayana) shape which figures appear and how they are understood.

Male
Filter Results25 entries

Acala

Male

Akshobhya

Male

Amitabha

Male

Amoghasiddhi

Male

Bhaishajyaguru

Male

Bodhidharma

Male

Chakrasamvara

Male

Hayagriva

Male

Kshitigarbha

Male

Mahakala

Male

Mahasthamaprapta

Male

Maitreya

Male

Manjushri

Male

Nagarjuna

Male

Padmasambhava

Male

Ratnasambhava

Male

Samantabhadra

Male

Shakyamuni Buddha

Male

Tsongkhapa

Male

Vairochana

Male

Vaishravana

Male

Vajrakilaya

Male

Vajrapani

Male

Vajrasattva

Male

Yamantaka

Male
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
2. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism
Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr., Princeton University Press, 2014s.v. deva; s.v. bodhisattvaView the Source
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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