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Lunar-Solar Buddha

The Buddha had both a Solar-Transcendent nature — as the fully enlightened one (facing sunrise beneath the cosmic Pipal), who passed into Nirvana — and a Lunar-Imminent nature — as compassionate bodhisattva self-bound to the wheel of Samsara.

As a Royal descendant of the sun, his emblem was a six or eight spoked ‘solar’ wheel, comparable to the mythological third (or cyclopean) eye. His city was Kapilavastu, home to the sage Kapila (legendary founder of Samkhya), whose fiery eye had the power to reduce men to ashes.

Matrceta, from within the Mahayana tradition, wrote this hymn in praise of compassion, concerning the Buddha as bodhisattva, metaphorically “cut into a hundred pieces” like a sacrificial Cosmic god:

You long bound yourself to compassion in order to free all those in the world who were bound by defilements. Which shall I praise first, you or the great compassion by which you were long held in samsara though well you knew its faults? Although you preferred the delights of solitude, compassion led you to spend your time among the crowd. Like a mighty dragon drawn from its lake by a spell, compassion led you from forest to town for the sake of those to be taught. Though abiding in deep tranquility, the development of compassion made you take up even the musical art. Your powers, your lion’s roar and the manifestation of virtues are but glitter rubbed off the nugget of your innate compassion. Your compassion was kind only towards others, but cruel towards her own master. Towards you alone, O Lord, compassion was pitiless. That same compassion had you cut into a hundred pieces and cast you like an offering to the four quarters, all for the sake of others. But clearly compassion always acted in accordance with your will. For although she oppressed you, he did not transgress against your desires.
Satapancasatka: 6. 58–66, translated by Ven. S. Dhammika

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