A blue buddha in a monk's robe, a fruit held between thumb and forefinger, twelve vows made in a world to the east, and the medical paintings of Lhasa in which he sits at the very first page.
The Medicine Buddha is Bhaishajyaguru, "Teacher of Medicine", whose full title is Bhaishajyaguru Vaiduryaprabharaja, King of Lapis Lazuli Light. Tibetans call him Sangye Menla, sangs rgyas sman bla, the Buddha Medicine Guru. In the sutra that tells his story he made twelve great vows before his awakening and now presides over a pure land in the east. In Tibetan painting he is deep blue, seated in vajra posture, his right hand lowered in the gesture of giving and holding the stem of a myrobalan plant, his left in his lap holding a bowl.
Medicine Buddha meaning: the name
Bhaiṣajya is Sanskrit for medicine or remedy, and guru is teacher. The second half of the title, vaiḍūrya-prabha-rāja, is "king of vaiḍūrya light". The word is usually rendered lapis lazuli, as in his Japanese name, Yakushi Rurikō Nyorai. It is not settled: Wikipedia notes that the librarian Marianne Winder argued it originally meant beryl, and Himalayan Art Resources (HAR) writes "King of Sapphire Light". Three stones, and in the paintings all of them come out the same deep blue.
The Medicine Buddha sutra and the twelve vows
His source is the Bhaiṣajyaguru Sūtra, in full the account of the previous aspirations of the Blessed Bhaiṣajyaguruvaiḍūryaprabha. The Tibetan canon files it among the Action, or Kriya, tantras as Toh 504, translated into English by 84000. In Chinese it was translated several times, by Xuanzang in 650 and by Yijing in 707 among others; Yijing's version adds the vows of six other buddhas.
In 84000's summary the scene is Vaiśālī, where Mañjuśrī asks Shakyamuni about the names and past aspirations of the buddhas, for a time when the Dharma has nearly vanished. Shakyamuni describes a world far to the east. In Xuanzang's version, as translated by Yutang Lin, it lies beyond buddha-lands as many as the grains of sand in ten Ganges rivers, and it is called Pure Lapis Lazuli.
Before he became the buddha of that world, the sutra says, he made twelve vows. Summarized from Xuanzang's version:
- His body would blaze with light, and all beings would become like him.
- His body would be like lapis lazuli, clear inside and out, a light for those in darkness.
- Beings would lack nothing they need.
- Those on mistaken paths would be brought to the path of awakening.
- Those who keep ethical discipline would not break it; those who have broken it would be purified on hearing his name.
- Those with impaired bodies or senses, or who are sick, would be made whole.
- The sick, poor and friendless would find relief and family.
- Women who wished to be reborn as men would be.
- Those caught in wrong views would be brought to right view.
- Those imprisoned or condemned would be freed from torment.
- The hungry would first be fed, then given the taste of the Dharma.
- The poor and cold would receive clothing and what they wish for.
Read as a list, the vows are less about medicine in the narrow sense than about lack: of light, food, clothes, freedom, a body that works.
The sutra also sets out a rite. In Xuanzang's version, for someone gravely ill, people are to make images of the buddha, keep forty-nine lamps burning for forty-nine days, hang a five-colored banner forty-nine spans long and recite the sutra forty-nine times. Twelve yaksha generals vow to guard anyone who keeps the text. They come back in the paintings.
Why is the Medicine Buddha blue?
The plain answer is in his name and his second vow. He is the king of vaiḍūrya light, and he vowed that his body would be like that stone, clear through. Painters are not choosing a mood. They are painting the jewel the text names.
The sadhana by the nineteenth-century master Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, translated by Rigpa Translations, says it plainly: "deep blue in colour". Some images, Wikipedia notes, push him toward blue-green.
Medicine Buddha iconography: how to recognize him
HAR's description and the Khyentse sadhana agree:
- Body and robe. Deep blue, one face, two hands, in the patched orange and yellow robes of a fully ordained monk. No crown, no jewelry.
- Posture. Legs folded in vajra posture, on a lotus and moon disc above a lion throne with a backrest.
- Right hand. Lowered over the right knee, palm out, in the gesture of supreme giving, holding a stem of myrobalan.
- Left hand. In his lap in meditation, palm open, supporting a begging bowl full of nectar.
- Attendants. Two bodhisattvas, of the sun (yellow in HAR's text, red on the Harvard painting below) and of the moon (white).
The arura
The plant in his right hand is Terminalia chebula, chebulic myrobalan, Sanskrit haritaki, Tibetan arura. The Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive's glossary calls it one of the three fundamental Tibetan medicines and notes that ordinary arura is common in Tibetan medical compounds. In the paintings it is small, a sprig held between thumb and forefinger, easy to miss at a distance.
Telling him from other buddhas
Akshobhya, the blue buddha of the east in the five buddha families, also wears a monk's robe, but his right hand reaches down to touch the earth, empty. Amitabha, buddha of the western Pure Land, shares the robe and the bowl, but he is red and both his hands rest around the bowl (see Amitabha Buddha).
The Eight Medicine Buddhas and the Medicine Buddha mandala
In Tibetan painting he is often not alone. HAR describes the Eight Medicine Buddha Brothers: Bhaishajyaguru and seven others, one of whom is Shakyamuni, the buddha who taught the sutra. HAR lists blue Bhaishajyaguru, pink Ashokottamashri, white Suvarnabhadra Vimala, pink Abhijnaraja, golden Shakyamuni, yellow Suparakirtita Namashri, Nirghosharaja and Dharmakirti Sagara. The number matches the texts: Yijing's version gives the vows of six other buddhas beside his, and Shakyamuni, who teaches the sutra, makes eight.
The fullest form is a mandala of fifty-one deities. Describing a nineteenth-century Bhutanese example in the Rubin collection (HAR 146, mineral pigment on cotton, 59.7 by 43.2 centimeters), Jeff Watt of HAR points out that the center is often not the Medicine Buddha at all. It is a book, the Prajñāpāramitā sutra, standing for the goddess of the same name, and the Medicine Buddha sits in one of the eight surrounding positions. Some paintings swap the two, or show the goddess herself. In the outer ring stand the Twelve Yaksha Generals, whom HAR says are often mistaken for forms of Jambhala.
One painting to look at closely
At the Harvard Art Museums, accession 2014.514, is a Seated Medicine Buddha from Central Tibet, late fourteenth to mid-fifteenth century, probably from Tsang: ink, color and gold on cloth, 57 by 45 centimeters, unmounted. He sits dark blue on a lotus throne holding the myrobalan, the sun bodhisattva red at one side and the moon bodhisattva white at the other. Behind him on a tiered dais are stupas holding the five buddhas. Around him in orderly rows the museum counts his eight emanations, Prajnaparamita, sixteen bodhisattvas, sixteen arhats, the twelve yaksha generals, the four guardian kings, and more.
The back is just as careful. A stupa is drawn there in proportions matching the front, with Sanskrit and Tibetan inscriptions inside. Along its edge runs a three-syllable mantra, again and again, each repetition placed behind one figure on the front. That is how the painting was consecrated: figure by figure, from behind.
Medicine Buddha and Tibetan medicine
The foundational text of Tibetan medicine is the Gyushi, the Four Tantras, whose twelfth-century edition in 156 chapters, associated with Yuthok Yonten Gonpo, is still in use. The anthropologist Theresia Hofer, writing for the Rubin's Project Himalayan Art, notes that the tradition holds it was taught by the Buddha, with the Medicine Buddha as its teacher.
In the late seventeenth century the regent Desi Sangye Gyatso (1653–1705) wrote a commentary on it, the Blue Beryl, and had a set of seventy-nine paintings made to illustrate it, around 1687 to 1697. According to Hofer, it was first shown to students at the Chakpori medical college in Lhasa, opened in 1696, and copies traveled as far as Buryatia and Mongolia. Paintings two to four are trees: nine trunks, forty-seven branches, 224 leaves, with small scenes on the branches, a map of the whole system for students to memorize.
The first painting is the Medicine Buddha. The Rubin owns a modern copy of it, SC2013.6, painted in 2012 and 2013 in Rebgong by Lobsang Drubjam Tsering, 109.5 by 90.2 centimeters of image. The palace is laid out as a mandala, ringed by four mountains, each with its own medicinal plants, minerals, stones and springs. At the center the blue buddha, in the form of the teacher Rigpa Yeshe, teaches four groups of disciples, among them Yilekye. The museum notes that medical students and doctors recite that first chapter each morning.
That is what the tradition holds. A thangka is a picture, not a medicine, and nothing here is medical advice.
The Medicine Buddha mantra
tadyatha om bhekandze bhekandze maha bhekandze radza samudgate soha
This is the form recited in Tibet, given in Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo's sadhana as teyata om bhekanze bhekanze maha bhekanze radza samudgaté soha. Bhekandze is the Tibetan pronunciation of the Sanskrit bhaiṣajye, medicine; Wikipedia, which spells it bekhandze, notes that ṣa came to be said kha in modern Tibetan. The word that repeats is the one in his name.
How to read a Medicine Buddha thangka
- The hands. A blue buddha in a monk's robe, right hand down and palm out with a sprig in the fingers, left hand holding a bowl in the lap.
- The company. Seven more buddhas, one of them golden, make the Eight Medicine Buddhas. A sun and a moon bodhisattva may stand at his sides.
- The edges. Twelve figures in an outer ring are likely the yaksha generals.
- The center. If a book sits at the middle of a mandala, it is probably the Prajñāpāramitā, and he is one of the figures around it.
Our Medicine Buddha thangka
Our Medicine Buddha black and gold thangka shows him blue, in vajra posture, his right hand lowered over the knee in the giving gesture and his left in his lap holding a bowl. His hair is dark blue, with a red mark between the brows, and his halo and mandorla are blue, set with red and blue crystals. The Three Long-Life Deities sit in haloes above him. Below are two female protectors, one white and one blue, with a wish-fulfilling jewel offering between them. The ground is black, worked in gold, shown in our Ink & Gold brocade.
It is our own drawing, kept to traditional iconometric proportions and printed on heavy card, not hand-painted and not in mineral pigment. It is then finished by hand at a temple by elderly lay Buddhists who practice there: glass crystals set one by one, outlines traced in gold glitter, about two days for each piece. The crystals are glass and the glitter is not gilding. The frame is 55 by 71 centimeters around an image of 40.2 by 56.2 centimeters, with a silk brocade frame-within-a-frame, a wood frame and an acrylic front. Part of every order goes to that temple, so every thangka is also an offering.
He also appears, smaller, at the top right of our Amitabha thangka with Shakyamuni, Tsongkhapa and the Medicine Buddha, beside Shakyamuni and Je Tsongkhapa. The other deities are in the thangka collection. How painted thangkas are made is in What Is a Thangka?, where to hang one in How to Hang a Thangka, and the deities Tibetans pair with long life in The Three Long-Life Deities.
Medicine Buddha questions
What does Medicine Buddha mean?
Bhaishajyaguru is Sanskrit for "Teacher of Medicine". His full title adds "King of Lapis Lazuli Light". In Tibetan he is Sangye Menla, the Buddha Medicine Guru.
Why is the Medicine Buddha blue?
He is King of Vaiḍūrya Light, usually translated lapis lazuli, and his second vow asks that his body be like that stone.
What is the Medicine Buddha mantra?
In Tibet: tadyatha om bhekandze bhekandze maha bhekandze radza samudgate soha. Bhekandze is the Tibetan sound of Sanskrit bhaiṣajye, medicine.
What are the twelve vows of the Medicine Buddha?
Twelve aspirations in the Bhaiṣajyaguru Sūtra, made before his awakening: that beings be given light, right view, discipline, wholeness of body, food, clothing and freedom.
Who are the Eight Medicine Buddhas?
Bhaishajyaguru, six buddhas whose vows appear beside his in Yijing's version, and Shakyamuni, who taught the sutra.
What is the difference between the Medicine Buddha and Akshobhya?
Both are blue and robed. Akshobhya touches the earth with an empty right hand; the Medicine Buddha holds his out in giving, with the myrobalan.
Behind the cloth
On the back of the Harvard painting, the mantra along the stupa's edge was written once for each figure on the front, each line placed where its figure sits on the other side. Nobody looking at the front would ever see them. Someone in Tsang, some six hundred years ago, wrote them out anyway.
May whoever is lacking something be given it.
Medicine Buddha Black and Gold Thangka · Thangka collection
More from the Journal: What Is a Thangka? · Amitabha Buddha · The Three Long-Life Deities · How to Hang a Thangka
More thangka deities: Green Tara · Manjushri · The Earth Touching Buddha