Dharmapala Thangka CentreSchool of Thangka Painting

Thirty Five Buddhas of Confession

They are also called »Buddhas of the forgiveness of sins« - Sanskrit: »Triskandhadharmasutra« - Tibetan: »phung po gsum pa'i mdo«]. They all have the essential characteristics of a Buddha but vary as to colour, mudras and hand objects. The 35 Buddhas were invoked once a month in the rite of aptittadesanavidhi [Tib. lTung-ba bshags-pa´i cho-ga], when all the monks of a monastery solemnly made a collective confession of guilt. The thirty-five Buddhas are seen as counterparts to the main crimes of human thought and action. Their existence is symbolic rather than historical.

The 35 Buddhas appear symbolically as counter-images to the principal faults of human thought and action. They are not historical figures, but symbolic Buddhas. They represent the many aspects of Buddha-nature-the wisdom, qualities, and virtues of a Buddha - which are depicted here in symbolic forms.

»Confession« is not used in the Christian sense of forgiveness of sin. Jains consistently reject the idea of a personal god who creates and destroys, forgives and damns. The nearest they come to this idea is when, upon reflection over the events of the day, a disciple discovers that he may have unintentionally hurt or inconvenienced someone, he to himself admits, confesses, to such an act and immediately attempts to assuage any ill feelings his act may have caused - in that other, or within his own psychological nature. If a young mendicant confesses to his guru some »sin« or personal hangup, he does not seek forgiveness, but insight, and strength to rid his soul »of the thorns of deceit, misapplied austerities, and wrong belief«, which obstruct the way to final liberation and cause an »endless migration of the soul«.

These thirty five Buddhas are the deities who preside over a penitential rite [Tib.: »ltung bzhags«] based on the »Upalipariprccha«, which forms a part of the »Maharatnakuta« Sutra.

Because of the widespread practice of this penitential rite, these thirty five Buddhas became extremely popular motif in Thangka painting, and there developed two currents in their iconographical representation. One is based on a manual by Tsong Kha Pa called the »Sangs rgyas so lnga´i mngon rtogs dang lha sku´i phyag tshad«, while the other derives from the »Bodhypattidesanavrtti« attributed to Nagajuna. The former is used chiefly by the »dGe lugs pa« [»yellow hat«], while the latter is used by the other three main school of Tibetan Buddhism, but there are exceptions to this general rule.

*] Details 11, 12, and 16 each depict four Buddhas or deities. Due to limited space, their names could not be included there. However, you can look them up here.