Eight Medicine Buddhas Thangka

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This detailed explanation features a thangka painting of the Eight Medicine Buddhas including Buddha Shakyamuni (སངས་རྒྱས་ཤཱཀྱ་ཐུབ་པ།). This interactive traditional Tibetan thangka shows the names of the eight Medicine Buddhas in Sanskrit and Tibetan.

The Medicine Buddhas (from Kadampa.org):

Buddha Shakyamuni revealed the practice of Medicine Buddha at a place called Vaishali in India. He expounded to thirty-six-thousand Bodhisattva disciples the Sutra called Eight Thousand Verses Principally Revealing Instructions on the Practice of the Medicine Buddhas. While Buddha was teaching, some disciples began to develop doubts about the existence of such enlightened beings. To remove these doubts from their minds, Buddha emanated light rays from his heart and invited the seven Medicine Buddhas to appear in Vaishali, so that all the thirty-six-thousand disciples could see them directly.

Buddha introduced each of the medicine Buddhas saying:

“This Buddha is Tathagata Medicine Guru [Buddha Bhaisajya Guru, སངས་རྒྱས་སྨན་བླ།]. He comes from an eastern Pure Land called `Lapis Jewel Land’.

This Buddha is Tathagata King of the Clear Knowing [Abhijnya Raja, མངོན་མཁྱེན་རྒྱལ་པོ།].

This Buddha is Tathagata Melodious Ocean of Dharma Proclaimed [Dharmakirti Sagara, ཆོས་བསྒྲགས་དབྱངས།].

This Buddha is Tathagata Supreme Glory Free from Sorrow [Ashokottama Shri Raja, མྱ་ངན་མེད་མཆོག་དཔལ།].

This Buddha is Tathagata Stainless Excellent Gold [Suvarnabhadra Vimala, གསེར་བཟང་དྲི་མེད་སྣང་བ།].

This Buddha is Tathagata King of Melodious Sound [Svaragosha Raja, སྒྲ་དབྱངས་རྒྱལ་པོ།].

This Buddha is Tathagata Glorious Renown of Excellent Signs [Suparakirtita Namashri, མཚན་ལེགས།].”

It is said that through hearing these instructions on the Medicine Buddhas, thirty-six-thousand human beings and seven hundred thousand non-human beings attained high realizations.

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