News

The Sutra of the Three Heaps, in Sanskrit the Triskhandhadharma-sutra, or briefly the Triskandha Sutra (phung po gsum pa'i mdo), is a Mahayana ritual text used primarily by monks and nuns for the purpose of confession of downfalls which means transgressions against the vinaya and bodhisattva vows. The central object of worship is the Thirty-five Confession Buddhas, including Shakyamuni Buddha. The name of the sutra follows from the three principal sections of the text: 1) homage, 2) confession, and 3) and dedication. There are other texts on confession found in the various Mahayana Sutras however none of those appear to have any representations in Himalayan and Tibetan art.

Only two of the thirty-five Buddhas are depicted or worshiped separately from the larger group. They are Shakyamuni Buddha and Nageshvara Raja Buddha. However, it is doubtful that there is any relationship between the Nageshvara Raja Buddha of the Confession Sutra and the meditational deity Nageshvara Raja popularized by Jowo Atisha. It is most probable that these two Buddhas became conflated over time because of the similarity in name. Regardless of that, it is generally believed that these two Buddhas are the same single entity.

There are at least three different iconographic systems for depicting the individual Thirty-five Confession Buddhas. The principal authors of commentaries and ritual texts were Arya Nagarjuna, Sakya Pandita and Je Tsongkapa.

In Sakya Pandita's text Pungpo'i Sumpa'i Do Dontab Shug (phung po gsum pa'i mdo 'don thabs bzhugs [volume NA, pages 450-452]), he describes the thirty-five Buddhas as divided into five groups of seven Buddhas each. The five groups of seven follow the appearance of the Five Symbolic or Tantric Buddhas: Vairochana, Amitabha, Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava and Amoghasiddhi. This means that the first group of seven are white and each with the same gesture of Dharma Teaching. The second group of seven are red and with the gesture of meditation, and so on for the remaining three Tantric Buddhas and the remaining three groups of seven. (See a painting that follows the Sakya Pandita description).

Jonang Taranata discusses the various systems for depicting the thirty-five Buddhas and states that he has a doubt that some of the systems of depicting the Buddhas with various hand objects (attributes such as a sword, vajra, tree branch, Mount Meru) that these originate in India or from Indian source texts.

Paintings depicting the Buddhas without hand attributes.



Paintings depicting the Buddhas with hand attributes.