ABC
Religious texts
Religious schools and traditions
Heavenly beings and deities
Legendary and historical figures
Legendary and real places
Symbols and art
Doctrines and rituals
- Awakening
- Community
- Compassion
- Craving
- Dependent origination
- Dharma
- Eightfold Path
- Emptiness
- Five Precepts
- Four Noble Truths
- Happiness
- Heavens and hells
- Impermanence
- Karma
- Koan
- Kung fu
- Meditation
- Merit
- Mindfulness
- Nirvana
- Non-self
- Om (mani padme hum)
- Parinirvana
- Pilgrimage sites
- Prajnaparamita
- Puja
- Pure lands
- Realms of existence
- Rebirth
- Recitation
- Renunciation
- Ritual
- Self
- Suffering
- Tales of rebirth
- Three Jewels
- Three-body doctrine
- Universal ruler
- Vesak
- Ye-dhamma formula
- Yoga
Universal ruler
Doctrines and rituals
Ancient Indian mythology sets forth the ideal of a universal ruler (Skt. Chakravarti) who reigned over the then-known world wisely and justly. According to Buddhist tradition, such a ruler is not born during the lifetime of a buddha, but provides peace and justice in the ages in between. Just like the Buddha, a universal ruler is recognizable by the thirty-two bodily signs of a Great Man. These include, among others, a protuberance on the crown of the head and a forehead mark, as depicted in images.