A white buddha at the center of the mandala, sometimes with one face, sometimes with four, looking out in every direction at once.
Vairocana is the central buddha of the Five Buddhas of Vajrayana Buddhism. In Tibetan he is Nampar Nangdze, rnam par snang mdzad. He is white, his place is the center, and his family is the Buddha family. His element is space, his emblem the wheel of the Dharma, and his wisdom is the wisdom of the dharmadhatu, the whole field of reality. The poison his family transforms is ignorance. In Tibetan painting he appears in two main ways: as a buddha with one face and hands in the gesture of teaching, and, in his form as Sarvavid, the All-Knowing, as a crowned white figure with four faces, seated in meditation.
Vairocana meaning: the name
The Sanskrit name is built on light. Wikipedia glosses it as "the Sun", "solar" or "shining", and notes the longer name Mahavairocana, "Great Sun". The Tibetan name is read a little differently. Rigpa Wiki translates Nampar Nangdze as "Completely Manifesting", and Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche, in a passage from Everyday Consciousness and Primordial Awareness published by Shambhala, renders it "One Who Completely Manifests". You will also see "the Illuminator", which is how we describe him on our product pages. The Sanskrit leans toward sunlight, the Tibetan toward making everything appear.
Where Vairocana comes from
Vairocana is older than the tantric mandala. Wikipedia notes that the Brahmajala Sutra introduces him seated on a lotus pedestal, and that in the Avatamsaka Sutra he is a supreme cosmic buddha who contains all world systems. Citing the scholar Kimiaki Tanaka, it suggests that the Vairocana of the Avatamsaka was later joined to an older scheme of four buddhas of the four directions, and that the standard set of five first appears in the Sarvatathagatatattvasamgraha and related texts.
Himalayan Art Resources (HAR) counts him, with Akshobhya and Amitabha, among the three most important buddhas in Tantric Buddhism, and notes that he is sometimes seen as a universal form of Shakyamuni. Wikipedia goes further in doctrinal terms: Vairocana, it says, is the Dharmakaya, the "Dharma-body" of all buddhas.
In East Asia he became even more central. Wikipedia names him a central object of devotion in the Tendai, Shingon and Huayan schools. The largest bronze image of him in the world is the Great Buddha of Todai-ji in Nara, Japan. Emperor Shomu commissioned it in 743; it was finished in 751, and Wikipedia records that some ten thousand monks attended its eye-opening ceremony in 752.
Vairocana at the center of the Five Buddhas
Tantric Buddhism arranges five buddhas in a mandala, one at the center and four at the cardinal directions, each heading a family. Amitabha, red, sits in the west and heads the Lotus family (we wrote about him in Amitabha Buddha). Vairocana sits in the middle. Drawing on the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Wikipedia and HAR, his attributes are usually given like this:
- Family. The Buddha family, also called the Tathagata family.
- Position and color. The center, and white.
- Element. Space.
- Wisdom. The wisdom of the dharmadhatu.
- Poison transformed. Ignorance.
- Aggregate. Form.
- Emblem. The wheel of the Dharma.
- Gesture. Teaching, the turning of the wheel.
- Mount. The lion.
- Feminine buddha. Dhatvishvari, also given as Akashadhatvishvari.
- Seed syllable. Om.
Where the sources disagree
Not every system agrees, and the sources say so themselves. The Encyclopedia of Buddhism's table notes that the colors and positions of the families "may vary in different systems". Wikipedia gives Vairocana's aggregate as form "or consciousness" and his poison as ignorance or, in some lists, aversion. The largest difference is at the center: Wikipedia notes that in the Guhyasamaja system and in the Nyingma Longchen Nyingtig, Akshobhya takes the center and Vairocana moves out to a direction. If you see a blue buddha in the middle of a five-buddha painting, it is not a mistake. It is another system.
The wheel and the wisdom of space
Thrangu Rinpoche explains the wheel simply: it stands for the authentic teachings, and its eight spokes for the eightfold path of the noble ones. The wisdom of the dharmadhatu, he writes, arises when the all-base consciousness is perfectly transformed and all ignorance and mental dullness are purified. He calls it the root of the other four wisdoms, and calls Vairocana the basis of all five families. That is one way to read why he sits in the middle: not as the most important of five equals, but as the open space the other four sit in. A Sakya verse quoted by HAR honors him in the same terms, as the "faultless wisdom of the dharmadhatu".
Vairocana iconography
HAR's general description of the Five Buddhas is a useful place to start. They can be shown in two appearances: as a plain buddha in monastic robes, which HAR calls nirmanakaya appearance, and as a crowned and jeweled figure, the sambhogakaya appearance. Both are found for Vairocana.
The one-faced Vairocana and his mudra
When the five appear together as a set, HAR gives Vairocana the teaching gesture and the lion as his mount, and notes that buddhas in plain appearance "generally have no attributes in the hands". His color, white, is what identifies him first. HAR also notes that Vairocana can be shown with several hand gestures: the gesture of meditation, the vajra gesture, and the gesture of turning the wheel of the Dharma. So the mudra alone is not always enough; the color and the place in the set usually decide.
In Japanese esoteric Buddhism the gesture is different again. Wikipedia describes the Vairocana of the Vajra Realm making the wisdom-fist mudra with both hands, and the Vairocana of the Womb Realm sitting in the meditation mudra of the Dharma Realm.
The four-faced Vairocana: Sarvavid
The form most people meet in Tibetan painting is Sarvavid Vairocana, the All-Knowing. He is the central deity of the Sarvadurgati Parishodhana Tantra, a Yoga-class tantra whose subject, HAR explains, is removing the causes and effects that lead to a bad rebirth. A Tibetan description HAR quotes from Shalu reads: "the Bhagavan Sarvavid with a body white in colour, four white faces and two hands in meditative equipoise," seated in vajra posture on a lotus and moon, adorned with jewels, "sparkling and all pervasive". The same passage places a five-pointed vajra in the hands.
HAR also lists a four-faced form from the Vajrashekhara Tantra, white, with the first face looking east and the hands in "the gesture of supreme enlightenment", holding a five-pointed vajra. And there is a more elaborate form still: in two thirteenth-century paintings HAR describes Vairocana of the Vajradhatu mandala with four faces, white, yellow, green and red, and eight hands. The first pair make a gesture at the heart, the second rest in meditation, and the others hold a rosary, an arrow, a Dharma wheel and a bow.
One of the four faces is always hidden: a painter can only show three.
Why Sarvavid matters in Tibet
The Rubin Museum's label on its seventeenth-century Sarvavid Vairochana mandala (C2006.66.346) gives a plain reason. Practices of other deities came to overshadow many Vairocana practices, it says, but those of the All-Knowing Buddha have stayed popular, largely because their rituals serve funerals and the consecration of buildings and images. HAR says the same: Vairocana's practice is important in consecrating new religious buildings and in funeral services.
Vairocana in mandalas and sculpture
Two Rubin mandalas recorded on HAR show what a Sarvavid mandala holds. One, from seventeenth-century Tibet in the Sakya tradition (P1998.28.4), is one of a set of twelve mandalas from the Sarvadurgati Parishodhana Tantra. Around the white four-faced buddha sit four buddhas of the directions, pink, blue, red and green, and four consorts, Locana, Mamaki, Pandara and Tara, with sixteen vajra deities, eight offering goddesses and four door guardians. On a smaller nineteenth-century painting on wood (P1995.12.1), HAR gives those four buddhas their names from the tantra: King of Purification, Precious Supreme Conqueror, Powerful One of the Shakya Race and Blossoming Great Flower.
In sculpture, the Rubin holds a small gilt Sarvavid Vairochana (C2013.10), probably from a Qing workshop in northern China or Inner Mongolia, which its label describes as "Vairochana, in his form of the All-Knowing Buddha," four-faced, crowned and seated in meditation with his hands in his lap. In 2017 the Metropolitan Museum built a gallery, Cosmic Buddhas in the Himalayas, around the five buddhas, with Vairocana at the center of the room and the directional buddhas on the four walls. One of its highlights was a panel from a Tibetan ritual crown, late thirteenth to early fourteenth century, showing Vairocana presiding over the five Tathagatas.
The Vairocana posture
Even people who have never seen his image may know his name from meditation instruction. The seven-point posture of Vairocana, as Lama Yeshe's glossary and HAR both list it, is: legs crossed, hands in the meditation gesture in the lap, back straight, shoulders level, head slightly bent forward, tongue touching the palate, eyes a little open. HAR notes that Kamalashila's Bhavanakrama is the text Tibetan writers quote most often on it, and adds a fair caution: although it is called the posture of Vairocana, other buddhas, such as Amitabha, sit the same way.
What the tradition says about Vairocana practice
In the tradition's own terms, Vairocana stands for the purification of ignorance, and Sarvavid practice is tied to the welfare of the dead and to consecration. Those are the teachings and practices of the tradition, held by its practitioners and given within a lineage by a teacher. A thangka is an image of him made with care; we make no claim that hanging one purifies, protects or brings anything to the person who owns it.
Our Vairocana thangkas
We make two Vairocana thangkas, both from the same drawing of him: white, four-faced with three faces visible, crowned and jeweled, seated in the vajra posture, both hands at his heart holding a golden wheel. The classical Sarvavid descriptions above put his hands in meditation; in our drawing he holds the wheel, his emblem, instead.
Our Vairocana Buddha Thangka, Four-Faced, with Two Buddhas is worked all in blue: blue ground, blue clouds, blue foliage, worked in fine silver and white line. His faces have lowered eyes and a small smile under a five-pointed crown rising to a jewel. The eight-spoked wheel at his heart is set with a ring of crystals, and red and blue crystals ring the mandorla. At the bottom two smaller Buddhas sit in their own haloes, one red and one blue, each in meditation, with a blue crystal set between them. The piece shown is framed in our Night Sky brocade.
Our Vairocana Buddha Thangka with Peonies sets the same figure in a garden. Yellow, orange and pink peonies fill a night-blue ground on every side. A pale green halo patterned in gold circles his head, a rainbow arches over the mandorla, and the mandorla is ringed with red, blue and amber crystals. The wheel at his heart has a blue crystal at its hub, and below him are a jewel offering and a conch on a lotus. It is also shown in Night Sky brocade.
Like all our thangkas, each is our own drawing, kept to traditional iconometric proportions and printed on heavy card. They are not hand-painted and not mineral pigment. Elderly lay Buddhists who practice at a temple finish each one by hand there, setting glass crystals one by one and tracing the outlines in gold glitter, which is not gilding; each piece takes about two days. 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.
The others are in the thangka collection. How a thangka is made is in What Is a Thangka?, and where to hang one in How to Hang a Thangka.
Vairocana questions
Who is Vairocana Buddha?
The central buddha of the Five Buddhas of Vajrayana Buddhism, head of the Buddha family. He is white, linked with space, the wheel of the Dharma and the wisdom of the dharmadhatu. In Tibetan he is Nampar Nangdze.
What does the name Vairocana mean?
The Sanskrit is usually glossed as "shining" or "of the sun"; Mahavairocana is "Great Sun". The Tibetan Nampar Nangdze is translated "Completely Manifesting" or "One Who Completely Manifests".
Why does Vairocana have four faces?
The four-faced white Vairocana is Sarvavid, the All-Knowing, central deity of the Sarvadurgati Parishodhana Tantra. Four-faced forms also appear in the Vajrashekhara and Vajradhatu mandalas. Only three faces can be shown in a painting.
What is Vairocana's mudra?
In sets of the Five Buddhas, the teaching gesture, turning the wheel of the Dharma. HAR notes he can also be shown in meditation or with the vajra gesture, and the four-faced Sarvavid usually sits in meditation. In Japan the Vajra Realm Vairocana makes the wisdom-fist mudra.
Is Vairocana always at the center?
Usually, but not always. In the Guhyasamaja system and in the Nyingma Longchen Nyingtig, Akshobhya takes the center.
The middle of the mandala
In a mandala the four buddhas of the directions each face somewhere. The one in the middle faces everywhere. When painters gave him four faces, they were not adding a strangeness to him; they were drawing what it means to stand in the center, with nothing behind you.
May your mind be as clear as open sky.
Vairocana Thangka, Four-Faced, with Two Buddhas · Vairocana Thangka with Peonies · Thangka collection
More from the Journal: Amitabha Buddha · Medicine Buddha · What Is a Thangka? · How to Hang a Thangka
More thangka deities: Shakyamuni Buddha · Manjushri · Green Tara · Kurukulla