have originated at the northwestern fringes of the In-
dian cultural sphere.
Though no occurrence of the list of twenty-five bud-
dhas of the past has yet been identified in Mahayana
scriptures, the first buddha in this series, Dpamkara,
plays a significant role in these texts. Since S ́akyamuni
Buddha was portrayed as having made his initial vow
to become a buddha in the presence of Dpamkara, this
motif became quite common in the writings of advo-
cates of the bodhisattva path in subsequent centuries.
Buddhas of the future
The earliest lists of multiple buddhas referred only to
S ́akyamuni and his predecessors. Around the turn of
the millennium, however, a shorter list of five—
consisting of four buddhas of the past (the ancient
buddhas Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, Kas ́yapa, to-
gether with S ́akyamuni) along with one buddha of the
future (MAITREYA; Pali, Metteyya)—was compiled.
The weight of this tradition is still anchored firmly in
the past, but the door was now open to speculation on
other buddhas who might also appear in the future.
Besides introducing a buddha-of-the-future for the
first time, this list was also innovative in its optimism
about the nature of the present age, for these five fig-
ures were labeled buddhas of the bhadrakalpa(fortu-
nate eon).
The list of five buddhas remained standard in the
Theravada tradition, but a longer list of one thousand
buddhas of the bhadrakalpa frequently appears in
Mahayana scriptures. An intermediary list, consisting
of five hundred buddhas of the bhadrakalpa,appears
to have circulated mainly in Central Asia. In all of these
systems Maitreya holds pride of place as the next bud-
dha to appear in our world. Like all buddhas-to-be, he
is said to be spending his penultimate life in the Tusita
heaven, from which he surveys our world to determine
the right time and place to be born.
Estimates varied as to the amount of time that
would elapse between our own age and the coming of
Maitreya. One of the most common figures was 5.6 bil-
lion years; other traditions offered a figure of 560 mil-
lion. While many Buddhists worked to acquire merit
in order to be born here on earth in that distant era
when Maitreya would at last attain buddhahood, oth-
ers strove to be reborn more immediately in his pres-
ence in the Tusita heaven. Still others strove for
visionary encounters with Maitreya, through which
they could see him in his heavenly realm even before
departing from this life.
Buddhas of the present
All of the traditions discussed above share the as-
sumption that only one buddha can appear in the
world at any given time. Each buddha is portrayed as
having discovered a truth about reality (i.e., an un-
derstanding of the dharma) that had, prior to his time,
been utterly lost. Since a buddha can appear, therefore,
only in a world without any knowledge of Buddhism,
only one such figure can exist at a time.
This restriction applies, however, only if one posits
the existence of just one world system, and around the
turn of the millennium some Buddhists began to
articulate a new view of the universe that consisted
not of one, but of hundreds or thousands of such
worlds. This made possible, for the first time, the idea
that other buddhas might currently be living and
teaching, albeit in worlds unimaginably distant from
our own. Scriptures reflecting this perspective speak
of other world systems located “throughout the ten
directions”—that is, in the four cardinal directions, the
four intermediate directions, the zenith, and the nadir.
Many Indian texts refer simply to these buddhas of
the ten directions in the aggregate, but occasionally
particular figures are named, some of whom appear to
have gained a strong following in India. By far the most
prominent are the buddha AKSOBHYA, said to dwell in
a world known as Abhirati (extreme delight) far to the
east, and the buddha AMITABHA (also known as
Amitayus), dwelling in the land of Sukhavat(blissful)
in the distant west. These two figures, together with
others currently presiding over comparably glorious
realms, have come to be known in English-language
studies as celestial buddhas.
The term celestial buddhahas no precise equivalent
in Sanskrit (nor for that matter in Chinese or Tibetan),
yet it can serve as a convenient label for those buddhas
who are presently living and teaching in worlds other
than our own and into whose lands believers may as-
pire to be reborn. Conditions in these lands are por-
trayed as idyllic, comparable in many respects to
Buddhist heavens; indeed, this comparison is made ex-
plicit in scriptures describing the worlds of celestial
buddhas, such as the Aksobhyavyuhaand the larger
SUKHAVATIVYUHA-SUTRA. Yet these realms are not
heavens in the strict sense, but “amputated” world sys-
tems, shorn only of the lower realms (durgati) of hell-
beings, animals, and ghosts.
In addition to inhabiting such glorious places—
said to be the by-product of their activities as bo-
dhisattvas, and in some cases (most notably in theBUDDHA(S)