The Three Jewels, also called the Three Treasures, Three Refuges, Precious Triad, or most commonly the Triple Gem (त्रिरत्न (triratna)) (Pali: tiratana), are the three things that Buddhists take refuge in, and look toward for guidance, in the process known as taking refuge.
The Three Jewels are:
- Buddha
- Sanskrit, Pali: The Enlightened or Awakened One; Chn: 佛陀, Fótuó, Jpn: 仏, Butsu, Tib: sangs-rgyas, Mong: burqan
- Depending on one's interpretation, it can mean the historical Buddha (Shakyamuni) or the Buddha nature—the ideal or highest spiritual potential that exists within all beings;
- Dharma
- Sanskrit: The Teaching; Pali: Dharmam, Chn: 法, Fǎ, Jpn: Hō, Tib: chos, Mong: nom
- The teachings of the Buddha.
- Sangha
- Sanskrit, Pali: The Community; Chn: 僧, Sēng, Jpn: Sō, Tib: dge-'dun, Mong: quvaraɣ
- The community of those who have attained enlightenment, who may help a practicing Buddhist to do the same. Also used more broadly to refer to the community of practicing Buddhists, or the community of Buddhist monks and nuns.
Read more about Three Jewels: Refuge Formula, Importance, Explication, Tibetan Buddhism, History, Art
Famous quotes containing the word jewels:
“The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first water,—so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that are to take place on their shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can ever be.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)