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
Vajra
Symbols and art
The Vajra (Skt., Tib. dorje) is a prime symbol and ritual object in Vajrayana Buddhism. The term is usually translated as ‘diamond scepter’. Originally, the vajra referred to the scepter or ‘thunderbolt’ of the supreme Hindu god Indra. In Buddhism it embodies the highest wisdom and complete awakening. It consists of a central hub from which grow two symmetrical end-pieces. These have either one, three, five or nine rays, which in turn merge into a tip.