Discover / Subjects & Meaning
The Buddhist Wheel of Life: reading the Bhavachakra
Read the Buddhist Wheel of Life from its three animals to the six realms and twelve links. Historical painting, a monastery mural and a silk textile show how the Bhavachakra tells its story.
In this story
The Buddhist Wheel of Life, also called the Bhavachakra or Wheel of Becoming, depicts samsara: the conditioned cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Animals at the centre show the afflictions that sustain it; surrounding rings connect actions, realms of existence and dependent origination. A formidable figure holds the wheel, while a Buddha or another sign of liberation may appear beyond it. The picture brings the causes of suffering and the possibility of release into one composition.
Where to begin looking
In the historical painting above, the great face and hands immediately draw attention. Within their grasp lies a round field divided into rings and broad sectors. Start at its small central hub, move through the light and dark band, then take in the realms and the narrow rim of scenes. Each change of scale introduces a different part of the teaching.
The wheel is a teaching image traditionally placed at monastery entrances. Here it can introduce the conditions of ordinary existence before a visitor enters the temple. It also appears on portable thangkas and textiles. The subject travels between settings and materials.
The pig, snake and rooster
At the hub, a pig usually represents ignorance, a snake hatred or anger, and a rooster desire or attachment. These are the three poisons: confused and reactive ways of relating to experience that keep the cycle turning. Their proximity is meaningful. In some versions the animals chase one another’s tails; in others, the snake and bird emerge from the pig’s mouth. Both arrangements connect the afflictions rather than presenting three isolated emblems.
The centre is small, but it supplies the cause for the larger picture. As the eye moves outward, the crowded scenes become the lives shaped by those causes. The hub and the realms belong to the same story.
Why one band is light and the other dark
The ring around the animals commonly divides into light and dark halves. Figures ascend in one half and descend in the other. These halves can be read as virtuous and non-virtuous actions, or karma, and their consequences for rebirth. The direction of the bodies matters as much as the contrast of colour.
This narrow procession sits between the central afflictions and the realms of existence. Its position makes the connection visible: habitual reactions lead into actions, and actions help condition experience. The two halves do not divide the painting into permanent groups of good and bad people.
The six realms of existence
The broad sectors contain gods, demigods or asuras, humans, animals, hungry ghosts and hell beings. The arrangement varies, and some pictures combine gods and asuras into one field, giving five sectors rather than six. Recognising the scenes is more useful than memorising one fixed position for each realm.
The gods enjoy pleasure and abundance, often amid palaces or gardens. Their comfortable lives still belong inside the wheel. The asuras are frequently shown in conflict with the gods; a shared tree or battle scene can connect their neighbouring domains. Pleasure and rivalry are both conditions within samsara.
Human scenes show ordinary activities alongside birth, illness, age and death. Buddhist teaching values human life for its opportunities to understand suffering and practise a path of release. The picture can place a teacher among daily scenes, making that opportunity visible without removing the human realm from the cycle.
Animals may be hunted, burdened or consumed by other animals. Hungry ghosts often have large stomachs and painfully narrow necks, making unsatisfied appetite visible. Hell scenes depict extreme suffering through heat, cold or torment. In the Buddhist account these are conditioned states, rather than an eternal punishment imposed by a creator.
Some modern Buddhist writers also read the realms as experiences within one life: jealousy, complacency, craving or fear. Diana St Ruth’s essay in Buddhism Now develops this psychological reading. It offers a way to relate the picture to daily experience; the traditional framework of rebirth remains a distinct part of the image’s religious meaning.
Twelve scenes around the rim
The narrow outer ring depicts the twelve links of dependent origination. They explain how suffering and renewed existence arise through conditions. These are twelve connected processes, rather than twelve birthdays or a calendar of months. The following sequence uses common images identified in Samye’s teaching account and Rubin’s annotated painting; individual works can depict a link differently.
The sequence begins with ignorance, often a blind person, followed by formations or volitional activity, shown by a potter shaping clay. A restless monkey represents consciousness. People travelling in a boat commonly depict name and form, the mental and physical aspects of experience. A house with openings stands for the six sense bases: the five bodily senses and the mind.
An embracing couple depicts contact; an arrow striking an eye depicts feeling or sensation. A person drinking represents craving, while someone gathering or holding fruit represents grasping. Becoming may be shown through pregnancy or a couple together. Birth is followed by ageing and death, often with an elderly person or a carried corpse.
Their order clarifies the transition from sensation to craving and grasping: an experience occurs, then a response may harden into wanting and holding on. The circular format returns the last scene to the first, giving the sequence its sense of continuation. Six realms occupy the broad interior; twelve links run around its edge. They describe different aspects of the same cycle.
The figure holding the wheel—and what lies beyond
The enclosing figure is commonly identified as Yama, the Lord of Death, though names and interpretations differ among accounts. Mouth, claws and powerful limbs hold the entire wheel. Even the gods are within that grip. The image’s emphasis is impermanence: all conditioned lives change and come to an end.
Beyond the circle, a Buddha may point towards a moon, a path or another image associated with release. This part varies markedly. In the painting at the beginning, a standing Buddha occupies the upper right, while a separate scene lies at the upper left. The mural below uses a different surrounding field. Looking outside the rim changes the conclusion: the wheel describes a cycle whose causes can be understood, alongside the possibility of liberation.
A wall painting and a silk Wheel of Existence
The Sera Monastery photograph places the subject on a wall, amid neighbouring paintings and architectural edges. The wheel’s clear rings remain recognisable, while its setting makes it part of a larger temple environment. A scroll can present the same subject as a portable image with its own textile border.
The Birmingham Museum of Art example shown here is an Eastern Tibetan work of about 1800, made with appliqué and embroidery on silk. Its mounted surface preserves a large central wheel and a distinct border. At more than 2.8 metres high in the file record, it also reminds us that thangka imagery can be monumental. Painting and textile construction achieve their scenes through different materials, while the layered composition carries the teaching across them.
Is this the eight-spoked Dharma wheel?
An eight-spoked Dharma wheel is a different Buddhist emblem, commonly associated with the Buddha’s teaching and the Noble Eightfold Path. Its spokes differ from the crowded realms and narrative rim of a Bhavachakra. Both use the form of a wheel, but they organise meaning differently.
A palace mandala is another distinct composition: its gates and enclosures describe a sacred residence. A Wheel of Life can broadly be called a mandala in some sources, but it is not automatically a deity’s palace plan. Our Buddhist mandala guide looks more closely at that architecture.
Return to the centre
After following the outer scenes, return to the small animals. The composition now links causes, actions, lived conditions and their continuation. Its scale moves between an intimate centre and an encompassing world, leaving space beyond the rim for the teaching’s promise of release.
Questions and answers
What do the three animals represent?
The pig commonly represents ignorance, the snake hatred, and the rooster desire or attachment. Their linked arrangement expresses how these three poisons sustain samsara.
Why do some pictures have five realms instead of six?
Some versions combine gods and asuras in one sector. Six classes of beings can therefore appear within five broad divisions. Other paintings give the asuras their own sector.
Are the six realms only states of mind?
Traditional Buddhist explanations place the realms within rebirth. Psychological readings relate them to experiences such as jealousy or craving during one life. The latter is a useful interpretive approach, rather than the whole religious account.
