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cakravartin
[ chuhk-ruh-vahr-tin ]
noun
- (in Indian philosophy, politics, etc.) an ideal, universal, enlightened ruler, under whom the world exists in justice and peace.
Word History and Origins
Origin of cakravartin1
Example Sentences
Attempts to connect the praying wheel with the wheel of the law, the cakravartin and other uses of the wheel in Indian symbolism, are irrelevant, for the object to be explained is not really a wheel but a barrel, large or small, containing written prayers, or even a whole library.
In early times there was indeed the idea of a universal Emperor, the Cakravartin, analogous to the Messiah but, by a characteristic turn of thought, he was thought of less as a deliverer than as a type of superman, recurring at intervals.
When the Cakravartin, according to an Indian legend, the universal monarch, would come to govern the earth, a wheel would also appear as one of his treasures, and go on rolling all over the world, making everything level and smooth.
Buddha is the spiritual Cakravartin, whose wheel is the wheel of the law of balance, with which he governs all things equally and impartially.
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