Deities
Vairochana
vy-ROH-chah-nah
Buddhist Deities
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Vairochana, the illuminator, is the central buddha of the five-buddha scheme and, in East Asian esoteric Buddhism as Dainichi, the cosmic buddha of whom all other buddhas including Shakyamuni are expressions. He is white, makes the gesture of turning the wheel of teaching, and is placed at the centre or the east depending on the system. The colossal buddha at Todaiji in Nara, cast in the eighth century, is his, as was the larger of the two figures destroyed at Bamiyan in Afghanistan in 2001. Kukai made him the ground of the Shingon school. Where a tradition needs something like an absolute, Vairochana is usually where it puts it, without thereby making him a creator.
Facts
Function
Domain / Function Domain / Function Domain / FunctionAwakening and liberation 1 Cult
Attributes and IconographyWhite, making the gesture of turning the wheel of teaching, placed at the centre or the east of the mandala depending on the system. 1 Attributions
Mythic AssociationKukai made Vairochana, as Dainichi, the doctrinal ground of the Japanese Shingon school, the cosmic buddha of whom all other buddhas including Shakyamuni are held to be expressions. 2 Attestation
Veneration TodayActively venerated in a living tradition 1 HistoricityNot a historical person: a divine or other-than-human being 4 Belief
TheologyNon-theistic: no creator god is central 3 History
Historical NoteThe colossal buddha at Todaiji in Nara, cast in the eighth century, is his, as was the larger of the two figures destroyed at Bamiyan in Afghanistan in 2001; Kukai made him the ground of the Shingon school. 1 Origins
Origin of the NameVairochana's name means the illuminator, naming his standing as the cosmic buddha of whom, in East Asian esoteric Buddhism, all other buddhas including Shakyamuni are expressions. 1 Learn More
The Illuminator at the Centre
Vairochana, the name means the Illuminator or the one who is like the sun, is the central buddha of the scheme of the Five Tathagatas, occupying the middle place around which the buddhas of the four directions are arranged, and in the esoteric Buddhism of East Asia he is elevated further still, to the status of the cosmic buddha of whom all other buddhas are expressions. He is usually white in colour and makes the dharmachakra mudra, the gesture of turning the wheel of the teaching, with both hands at the heart. In the symbolic system of the five, he transforms the poison of ignorance or delusion, the most fundamental of them, into the wisdom of the absolute reality-realm (dharmadhatu), the all-pervading awareness that is the ground of the others.
Vairochana's clearest monument is the Great Buddha of Todai-ji in Nara, Japan, a colossal bronze image completed in 749 CE and consecrated in a lavish eye-opening ceremony in 752 attended by the retired emperor, the reigning empress, and envoys from across East and South Asia, with an Indian monk, Bodhisena, performing the rite of painting in the statue's pupils; the choice of Vairochana for this state-sponsored monument reflects the Kegon (Huayan) Buddhist vision, current at the Nara court, of a single cosmic Buddha whose body is the entire universe and every other Buddha merely one of its manifestations.
Dainichi, and the Cosmic Buddha of the Esoteric Schools
It is in the esoteric traditions that Vairochana attains his greatest height. In the Shingon school of Japan, where he is called Dainichi Nyorai, the Great Sun Buddha, he is nothing less than the cosmic body of reality itself, the dharmakaya, the ultimate buddha from whom the whole of existence proceeds and of whom every other buddha, including the historical Shakyamuni, and every being is a manifestation.
The great scriptures of this tradition, the Mahavairocana Sutra and the Diamond Peak Sutra, present the entire cosmos as the teaching and the body of Dainichi, and the two great mandalas of Shingon map reality as his self-expression. The colossal seated bronze buddha of the Todaiji temple in Nara, one of the largest bronze statues in the world, is an image of Vairochana in this cosmic aspect. Vairochana thus stands at the point where the buddha ceases to be understood only as a teacher who lived and died and becomes the very structure and radiance of reality, the illumination in which all things appear.
Correspondences & Relations
Cross-Tradition Connections
Associated With
This source names Vairochana directly: "record for "Seated Transcendent Buddha Vairochana," a Javanese bronze of the late 9th century, given by Samuel Eilenberg in 1987."
Depicted In
The Met's own title for this bronze names the subject outright, "Seated Transcendent Buddha Vairochana," a narrative identification rather than a bare tag.
Sacred to This Deity
The letter a is the seed syllable of Mahavairocana in the Womb Realm arrangement, and it is the syllable named in the Shingon contemplation of the letter A. Both readings turn on a being the sound already present in every other syllable.
The syllable vam, the letter va with the nasal mark above it, is the seed syllable of Mahavairocana in the Diamond Realm arrangement, the counterpart of the letter a in the Womb Realm.
Worshipped In
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