1002 buddhas of this Fortunate Aeon
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1002 buddhas of this Fortunate Aeon (Tib. སངས་རྒྱས་སྟོང་རྩ་གཉིས་, Wyl. sangs rgyas stong rtsa gnyis) — the supreme nirmanakaya buddhas to appear during this Fortunate Aeon. At the end of the previous kalpa, when the world was engulfed by flood, one thousand golden lotuses arose from the great ocean. Beings residing in the heavens understood that this auspicious sign was an indication of the one thousand buddhas who would brighten the coming aeon.
They are enumerated in detail in the Fortunate Aeon Sutra (Skt. Bhadrakalpikasutra; Tib. བསྐལ་པ་བཟང་པོའི་མདོ་, Wyl. bskal pa bzang po’i mdo). Tertön Sogyal also discovered a mind terma called the Names of the Thousand and Two Buddhas at the treasure site of Marong.
According to the Mahayana, the first fourteen are:
- Krakucchandra
- Kanakamuni
- Kashyapa
- Shakyamuni (aka the Buddha of the present)
- Maitreya (aka the Buddha of the future)
- Singha (Skt. Siṁha; Tib. སེང་གེ་, Wyl. seng ge)
- Pradyota (Skt.; Tib. རབ་གསལ་, Wyl. rab gsal)
- Muni (Skt.; Tib. ཐུབ་པ་, Wyl. thub pa)
- Kusuma (Skt.; Tib. མེ་ཏོག་, Wyl. me tog)
- Kusuma (Skt.; Tib. མེ་ཏོག་གྱིས་པ་, Wyl. me tog gyis pa)
- Sunetra (Skt.; Tib. སྤྱན་ལེགས་, Wyl. spyan legs)
- Sarthavaha (Skt. Sārthavāha; Tib. སྡེ་དཔོན་, Wyl. sde dpon)
- Mahabahu (Skt. Mahābāhu; Tib. ལག་ཆེན་, Wyl. lag chen)
- Mahabala (Skt. Mahābala; Tib. སྟོབས་ཆེན་, Wyl. stobs chen)
- Adhimukta (Skt.; Tib. Möpa Tayé; Wyl. mos pa mtha yas) will be the last supreme nirmanakaya buddha of this Fortunate Aeon. He will live for as long as all the other thousand buddhas of this Fortunate Aeon put together. His activities for beings' welfare, too, will match all of theirs put together. It is said that this buddha is a manifestation of Dudjom Rinpoche.
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche says: "In the world period that we are now in, one thousand buddhas will appear. In the same way, for each of these buddhas there will be one thousand Guru Rinpoches to carry out their activities. In the present age of Buddha Shakyamuni one such emanation appeared in the person of Padmasambhava, the Lotus-Born One."[1] And Jamgön Kongtrul writes: "In the future, when Buddha Maitreya appears in this world, Padmakara will emanate as the one known as Drowa Kundul and spread the teachings of Secret Mantra to all worthy people."[2]
Footnotes
- ↑ In Padmasambhava, Dakini Teachings—Padmasambhava's Oral Instructions to Lady Tsogyal (Boudhanath, Hong Kong & Esby: Rangjung Yeshe Publications, 1999), page xxv.
- ↑ Id., page xxiv.
Further Reading
- The Fortunate Aeon: How the Thousand Buddhas Became Enlightened (Berkeley: Dharma Publishing, 1986), volumes 2-4.