Wheel of Life: Twelve Links of Dependent Arising
Wheel of Life: ComponentsThe Twelve Links of Dependent Arising (dvādaśāṅga-pratītyasamutpāda; Tib. རྟེན་འབྲེལ་ཡན་ལག་བཅུ་གཉིས་) is the outermost ring or circle of the Wheel of Life, represented by twelve narrative scenes, sometimes framed by a cartouche or separated by solid lines.
Video: Twelve Links of Dependent Arising
The twelve descriptive images below are the most common found in Himalayan and Tibetan art. They do not compare exactly with the translated text below which is from an early Chinese translation of a Sanskrit text of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya Vibhanga. The Tibetan version has some slight differences. The Twelve Links, depending on the Sanskrit source literature, can also expand to sixteen or more links, as explained in different sutras or commentarial texts.
The Twelve Links of Dependent Arising:
Ignorance – a blind person with a walking stick (Chinese translation: Raksha demon)
Dispositions – a potter & a potter's wheel
Consciousness – a man picking fruit
Name and form – two people in a boat
Six senses – a house with six windows
Contact – a couple embracing
Feeling – an arrow in the eye
Thirst – a man receiving a drinking cup
Grasping – a monkey with fruit
Becoming – a couple
Birth – a woman giving birth
Old age and death – a corpse being carried
The first of the twelve links, ignorance is represented by a blind man walking with a stick. With the majority of Wheel of Life examples the first link is more often placed just after the 12:00 position or the 6:00 position of the circle. Other examples can have the first link start anywhere in the circle providing that the twelve links follow consecutively in their traditional order. The twelve images are not always standardized and can often be interpreted differently by various artistic traditions and individual artists.
Jeff Watt [updated 6-2022]
Source Text: Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya Vibhanga: (translated from the Chinese version of the Sanskrit text)
'All around this you should then paint the Twelve Conditions and the signs of life and the extinction of life, which means ignorance, dispositions, and so on, up to old age and death. For the ignorance branch make an image of a raksa [demon]. For the disposition branch make an image of a potter's wheel. For the consciousness branch make an image of a monkey. For the name-and-form branch make an image of people riding in a boat. For the six sense fields branch make an image of the six sense organs. For the contact segment make an image of men and women embracing. For the feeling branch make an image of a man and woman experiencing pain and pleasure. For the desire branch make an image of a woman holding a child in her arms. For the appropriation branch make an image of a man holding a bottle fetching water. For the becoming branch make an image of the great god Brahma. For the birth branch make an image of a woman giving birth. For the old age branch make an image of old, decrepit men and women. For sickness make make an image of men and women who are ill. For the death branch make an image of a dead person on a bier. For sadness make an image of men and women grieving. For malady make an image of men and women weeping. For pain make of men and women suffering. For difficulty make an image of a man and woman pulling a camel that is hard to tame."
(Reinventing the Wheel. Paintings of Rebirth in Medieval Buddhist Temples. Stephen F. Teiser. University of Washington Press, Seattle & London. 2006. Page 55-56).
(The images below are only a selection of examples).
