Dīpaṃkara

THE THREE-BUDDHA GROUP IS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE, and with this batch the corpus holds all three: Dipamkara, Sakyamuni and Maitreya. THE TWENTY-EIGHT NAMED BUDDHAS BEFORE GAUTAMA ARE NOT INGESTED as a series; Dipamkara is ingested because the sources give him an ACT — the prophecy — and the other twenty-seven are a census row. TYPE deity IS THE NEAREST CATEGORY THIS SCHEMA HAS AND THE TRADITION DOES NOT USE IT. Buddhism does not regard a Buddha as a god; the devas this corpus already holds under the Buddhist key are, in this tradition's own view, unenlightened beings inside samsara, and a Buddha stands above them precisely by NOT being one. The record says so rather than letting the type field make the claim.

Domains

• prophecy

Relations

• prophesied the awakening of: SumedhaIn-batch.Reference treatment of Sumedha and of Dipankara: Dipankara issued the prophecy of Gautama Buddha's awakening, and Sumedha is the ascetic of that previous eon to whom the prophecy was made. (secondary)

Sources

• A Buddha of a previous eon, fourth in the succession of twenty-eight named Buddhas before Gautama, famous for issuing the prophecy of Gautama's awakening; Tibetan Buddhism honours him as the Buddha of the Past, shown beside Śākyamuni the Buddha of the Present and Maitreya the Buddha of the Future.: Reference treatment: Dipankara was a buddha of a previous eon, famous for having issued the prophecy of Gautama Buddha's awakening as a buddha; he was fourth in the succession of 28 named buddhas who preceded Gautama, and in Tibetan Buddhism is honoured as the Buddha of the Past, often depicted alongside Shakyamuni the Buddha of the Present and Maitreya the Buddha of the Future. (secondary)