The wheel of life (saṃsāracakra) is a special iconographic wheel shape found in Buddhist art. It represents the Buddhist view of the cosmos, life, and causality. The vinaya of the Sarvāstivāda, a Hīnayāna school, provides a detailed structural description of the wheel of life image. In the same time period, variations of this iconography appeared within the areas of East Asia and Central Asia where Mahāyāna Buddhism (including Tantric Buddhism) was dominant. One might ask what was the original model for the saṃsāracakra wheel? Mahāyāna Buddhism and Hīnayāna Buddhism can be quite different in doctrine and so a more fundamental question might be: What are the fundamental differences between the images of the wheel of life that appeared in the regions influenced by Mahāyāna Buddhism and the descriptions of this iconography in the Hīnayāna text? Based on studies of related literature and an analysis of visual images, this article proposes that the configuration of the iconography of the wheel of life had its origin in a waterwheel. Taking into account the complicated history of waterwheels throughout the world, this article suggests that the image of the wheel of life initially referred to the manual noria type of waterwheel found in India, and in addition, that the emergence of the images of the wheel of life in China was related to the wide-spread use of the Chinese style waterwheel, namely the tongche. According to the description in the Chinese translation of the Mūlasarvāstivādin-vinaya, water containers were positioned along the rim of the wheel. Among the existing images of the wheel of life, there are depictions of these water containers representing three different areas of the world. This article proposes that these water containers, positioned along the rim of the wheel of life, may represent the intermediate after-death stage called zhongyou, or antarābhava. In addition, this study will consider certain major changes in the iconography of the wheel of life. These changes point to the variant interpretations in Mahāyāna Buddhism of the Dharma, the world of saṃsāra, the path of liberation, and Buddha’s views.
Key words:
wheel of life; waterwheel; tongche; Sarvāstivāda; transformations in Mahāyāna
